CHESTER, Pa.— With the last minute running off the clock, Kayla Treanor bent forward and appeared to yell at her teammates. She tapped the back of her leg three times and then a few more times seconds later. Then she twirled the stick in her hand.

As the ball moved around Syracuse’s defensive zone, Treanor moved right a little bit on the white restraining line.

She gave her stick one last turn as her head followed Maryland midfielder Kelly McPartland run across the field and drain the clock.

“There’s nothing you can do when you’re standing on the 30,” Treanor said. “But you can encourage them and tell them to dig in.”

SU’s star player, its Tewaaraton Award finalist, the player that led the Orange (16-8, 3-4 Atlantic Coast) to an ACC championship, was left to stare as the Terrapins (20-1, 5-0 Big Ten) polished off a 10-8 win and ended SU’s season for the third straight year.

Treanor tallied three goals — including two with less than 16 minutes left — and two assists to contribute on five of the Orange’s eight goals. But as seconds trickled off the clock, SU’s best player could do nothing as the Terrapins held the ball.

“We’ve been down this road a lot this year,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “… They got the ball with about six minutes left and started stalling then, and then they held it the rest of the game.”

With the flick of Treanor’s fingers, the SU offense moved. She directed the offense all game and when others didn’t get open, she took it upon herself. The Orange tied its season low, tallying 16 shots, but Treanor tallied six, the most for any Orange player.

Treanor scored only once in the first 44 minutes and struggled to get in an offensive rhythm, but with the clock winding down, the Tewaaraton finalist emerged. First she curled around the crease and dropped a shot between Maryland goalie Alex Fitzpatrick’s legs with 15:34 left. Then Treanor jabbed her foot left, cut underneath her defender and ripped a shot into the top-left corner to cut SU’s deficit to two with 7:18 left.

“We knew we had to play with a sense of urgency,” Treanor said. “So we were just trying to score some goals and communicate and get some good looks.”

But for Syracuse and Treanor, there was no third goal and no run. With six minutes left and the score 10-8, UMD took the ball back and stalled. Although Maryland head coach Cathy Reese said she “hates” holding the ball, that’s just what the Terrapins did.

Moving goalie Kelsey Richardson out of the net as a defender didn’t get SU the ball back. Chasing UMD players around didn’t work. And fouling didn’t work either. SU was dealt yellow cards to midfielder Erica Bodt and Richardson in the process.

“It’s hard to get the ball back with the way the rules are written, and it’s very difficult and you get yellow cards, which we did,” Gait said. “It makes it tough.”

Holding the ball kept it out of the hands of Treanor. She’s the player that breathed life into SU’s season with two game-winning goals in the ACC tournament. She’s the player teams face guarded and assigned their toughest and biggest players to.

“When she has the ball, I think we all just hold our breath. She’s that good,” Reese said. “… When we were able to come up with the ball and possession under 10 minutes, under eight minutes, we would rather keep it on our end of the field.”

On Saturday night, Reese could exhale because Treanor didn’t have the ball.

And without the ball, Treanor could not be the player to save SU’s season.

Published on May 23, 2015 at 12:53 am

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati