At practice, the Syracuse defenders play off of each other. SU defender Mallory Vehar calls them “goofy,” and sometimes they need to refocus.

Kelsey Richardson reels them back in. A simple, “Guys, focus,” from the Orange’s starting goalie brings her teammates back to practice, Vehar said. And Richardson brings that organization into the locker room, too.

“She’ll be in there cleaning up, making sure everything looks nice,” Vehar said. “… She’s on top of everything.”

In some ways, Richardson being “on top of everything” has helped the Orange. She’s the senior buoying a young and inexperienced starting defense that features two sophomores and a former midfielder. Richardson has vacuumed 33 ground balls, first on the team, and caused nine turnovers, sixth on the team.

But sometimes that detracts from Richardson’s main objective: saving shots. Of the goalies starting for Top-10 teams, Richardson has the second-lowest save percentage and ranks 64th in the country for the same statistic. No. 6 SU (9-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) needs Richardson to have an improved performance between the pipes when it faces No. 2 North Carolina (11-2, 4-1) at noon on Saturday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

“She’s super focused on every aspect, and if nothing else we try to tell her to take a step back and think about saving the ball.” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “You don’t have to run the whole defense… sometimes it’s good to just go out and play.”

Richardson has been relied on to clear the ball out of the Orange defensive zone. But on Tuesday against Notre Dame, SU recorded its second-worst single-game clearing performance of the year, clearing the ball just 12 out of 18 times.

To combat the Irish’s man-to-man ride, Richardson at times reached as far as the UND defensive zone, and SU’s game plan worked, UND head coach Christine Halfpenny said. Slowly the Fighting Irish applied pressure to Richardson, and she flung a clear attempt into the SU bench. In the game, Richardson saved just five of the Fighting Irish’s 17 shots.

“We just made some simple errors, some overthrows. They were very aggressive,” Gait said of SU’s clears.

But when she’s been able to focus on making saves, Richardson has played well. Before playing Maryland on March 7, she spent the week leading up to the game watching film and — save for Tewaaraton Award winner Taylor Cummings — Richardson figured the Terrapins out.

She saved 62 percent of No. 1 UMD’s shots, tallying one of only two times she’s saved more than half the shots she has faced. Richardson anticipated if the Terrapins came in with their sticks high, they would shoot low and vice versa on free positions and had the tendencies of Terrapin attack Brooke Griffin nailed down, Richardson said.

“Just really, really focused on saving the ball instead of directing the defense,” Richardson said after SU’s game against Maryland. “So, it was more of personal lessons for me to learn over this week and focus on my performance more than the defense as a whole.”

The defense has not exactly been helpful to Richardson at times. Against UND on Tuesday, the Fighting Irish jumped out to a 2-0 lead by shredding the Orange defense in transition, leaving Richardson in one-on-one situations with offensive players.

But when the SU defense puts Richardson in favorable situations, she has stuck in net and saves have tagged along. With seconds left in the second half Tuesday night, UND midfielder Alex Dalton streaked down the field and fired a shot 15 yards from the net.

Patiently waiting in net, Richardson dropped to her knees, stuck her stick to her right and made the save with no time on the clock, pushing the game to overtime.

“She wants it, she wants to compete, she wants to compete in every manner in practice and it’s intense,” associate head coach Regy Thorpe said. “Sometimes it’s really good and sometimes she needs to relax and sit back in the net there.

“It’s just finding a happy medium.”

Published on April 8, 2015 at 9:25 pm

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati