North Carolina Too Much for Syracuse
The Orange dropped a tough loss to fifth ranked UNC by a final score of 21-9. The Orange were not able to really ever find themselves throughout the whole game. Offensively, defensively and on the face-off the Orange got beat on all cylinders.
Offensively, the Orange were never able to get anything going really aside from four goals from Jamie Trimboli who lead the little offensive attack today. UNC defenders were fast and physical and won the groundball battle forty two to thirty-one. The orange only had six assists on the day and were out of luck as well when it came to time on attack. UNC had the ball most of the game and like in previous Orange losses its hard to score when you don’t have the ball. The Orange were only able to generate twenty two shots on goal while the Tar heels had thirty seven.
“We didn’t play with the poise we needed to play with, especially early to give the possessions to our offense,” Said Coach Desko.
Defensively, the Orange could not handle the Tar heels and it started early on where the Orange lead up five goals in just under the first five minutes. This ultimately led to the Orange letting up twenty-one goals which is the most goals Syracuse has allowed since march fourth of 2006 in a loss to Virginia. The offensive attacks that helped the tar heels were the face-off wins. The Tar heels won the face-off battle 19/34 and were able to capitalize and score on many of those. Passing was also another strong suit in the tar heels attack, they were able to move the ball and create open shots with thirteen assists.
“With the face-offs it was disappointing…the decisions we made afterwards killed us, when we did get a stop defensively, we couldn’t clear the ball,” Said Coach John Desko.
The Orange hope to bounce back and win out the rest of the season to keep their tournament chances alive. The Orange take on Virginia at Virginia next Saturday April 24th at Noon.