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Trailing 5-1 just nine minutes in, Syracuse found itself reeling. Saturday’s was a must-win game for the Orange to further assert their dominance in conference play. So, in stepped Maddy Baxter.

A 2-0 personal run, along with three more Baxter goals total, helped the Orange claw back. Then in the final quarter, amid a back-and-forth affair, Baxter tallied a crucial game-tying goal that eventually spurred SU to victory. In No. 7 Syracuse’s 15-14 (7-3, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) win over No. 9 Virginia (9-2, 3-2 ACC), it was Baxter’s career-high five goals that led the Orange to their fourth straight win and fifth in conference play.

Baxter showed up when she was needed the most. In the first quarter, despite winning 7-of-10 draw controls, SU was well behind on the scoresheet due to multiple turnovers and missed defensive coverages. Following Natalie Smith’s opening goal at the 10:12 mark, the Orange were struggling to find offensive momentum, not recording a shot for over four minutes of play.

Attempting to break the drought, Baxter received a pass from Savannah Sweitzer along the right side and cut inside. With two UVA defenders on her right, Baxter fired a backhand shot across her body to beat Mel Josephson in net, cutting the deficit to three.

Just over a minute later, Baxter found the back of the net again, this time stepping down on a shot from the right corner over the shoulder of Josephson. Baxter made her mark against the Cavaliers on power play opportunities, as both first-quarter goals came when the Orange were a player-up.

In her fourth season at SU, Baxter is emerging as a top offensive threat. After tallying just 11 and eight goals in her freshman and sophomore seasons, respectively, Baxter broke out in her junior year in 2023, finding the back of the net 25 times. Now as a senior, Baxter has already eclipsed 18 goals with 10 games still remaining.

In the program’s first media session of the 2024 season, SU attack Emma Ward mentioned Baxter as one to watch, a vital piece of the Orange’s versatile midfield core who would break out this season and strengthen the attack.

“In the midfield, we have Smith and Maddy Baxter,” Ward said on Feb. 6. “They’re just stepping up, continuing the role that they played last year and just being even more influential on our team this year.”

And Ward’s early-season assessment on Baxter’s invaluable play is accurate. She’s scored two or more goals in five contests before Saturday afternoon’s performance.

After a goal from SU’s Joely Caramelli brought the deficit to just one at the end of the first quarter, Baxter completed the comeback to start the second quarter. With the Orange offense setting up around the perimeter of the 12-meter, Olivia Adamson moved the ball from the left across to the right elbow for Baxter. Baxter received the pass and darted past UVA’s Maggie Bostain before bouncing the ball under Josephson’s stick for the goal.

The senior often uses her lanky 5-foot-10 frame to quickly cover ground or squeeze into tight spaces and beat defenders. Against Bostain, it was more of the same.

Throughout the remainder of the second quarter, Baxter was held out of the net. But she opened SU’s scoring in the third, giving the visitors a 10-9 advantage. First, she forced a UVA turnover. Then as SU successfully cleared the ball upfield, Emma Tyrrell fed Adamson. The attacker initially sprinted up field but faded off to her right, once noticing there wasn’t a numbers advantage. Trailing the play, Baxter emerged from behind and received a pass from Adamson before quickly firing at the net, beating Josephson and giving Syracuse its first lead of the day.

While Adamson used facilitating to make an impact, she didn’t score her first goal until six minutes left in the third quarter. Ward didn’t find the back of the net until 90 seconds to play in the frame. The pair — usually relied upon to spark anytime scoring for SU — wasn’t producing. But Baxter’s improved scoring prowess canceled out the lack of production early on from SU’s leading threats.

“We have so many different goalscorers on the team,” Tyrrell, who tallied two goals Saturday, said postgame versus UNC on March 16. “We have so many different threats, so it’s kind of hard. If you’re trying to shut off some of us you can’t really do that because there’s just so many of us that are gonna go to goal.”

Trailing by two early in the fourth quarter, Baxter helped tie the game once more with her career-high fifth goal as part of a 3-0 run to seal the top-10 victory and stay unbeaten in conference play. Against North Carolina, it was Tyrrell’s day. Versus UAlbany, Emma Muchnick tallied three. Saturday versus the Cavaliers, it was Baxter who led the way.

“I think there’s a lot of teams out there with superstars and then role players and there really is no class system here,” SU head coach Kayla Treanor said after the win over UAlbany days prior. “Everybody is a threat. Everybody that steps onto that offensive end we need to produce and play the style that we want to play.”

Published on March 23, 2024 at 4:25 pm

Contact Aiden at: amstepan@syr.edu | @AidenStepansky