With less than a minute left in the first half, Syracuse attack Halle Majorana was knocked down on the doorstep of a goal, on the right side of the crease.

The push fit right in what was already an aggressive game.

Except there was no call.

Notre Dame rushed the length of the field and SU defender Mallory Vehar returned the favor, knocking down Fighting Irish midfielder Caitlin Gargan. Instead of taking a free-position shot, Gargan passed the ball. As her teammates counted down the seconds left in the half, UND attack Rachel Sexton got a shot past SU goalie Kelsey Richardson to beat the first-half buzzer.

“One-goal games, there’s a lot of goals you think about after,” Vehar said. “I think that goal, she shot it last couple seconds, no one was really expecting it to go in.”

The goal was partly a result of Notre Dame’s aggressive play. No. 6 SU (9-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) lost to the No. 13 Fighting Irish (8-5, 3-3), 12-11, in overtime on Tuesday in the Carrier Dome. The Fighting Irish outfouled the Orange 41-28 and pressured SU into its worst clearing performance since Feb. 25 against Connecticut. The Fighting Irish’s aggressive game plan — UND pushed the ball in transition and forced SU into mistakes on clears — bled into its play and snapped SU’s rhythm.

“We pushed the fast break, that was part of our game plan against Syracuse. This time out was to get them in unsettled situations,” Notre Dame head coach Christine Halfpenny said, “because once they got settled in that high pressure, I thought they did a really good job.”

On both of UND’s first two goals, the Fighting Irish pushed the ball from end to end, burning the SU defense in transition. In just over six minutes, Notre Dame took a two-goal lead.

It was aggressive on both ends. Less than 10 minutes into the game Vehar was issued a yellow card because she swung her stick at UND midfielder Molly Cobb. In 66 minutes of game time, the teams combined for a total of 69 fouls.

Notre Dame tried pushing SU’s tempo on clears. SU brought Richardson out of the net, reaching the opposite 45-yard line and even into the Fighting Irish’s restraining box at one point. 

“I think they kind of shredded it in the beginning,” Halfpenny said, “and when we started pushing some pressure to their goalkeeper, that started to put a little bit of a kink in the system.”

The adjustment forced SU to clear the ball without Richardson coming out of the net as much. SU head coach Gary Gait said the Orange made mistakes by overthrowing the ball. To start the second overtime period, Richardson launched a clear into the SU bench, sending the Notre Dame bench into a frenzy.

“We’d be running upfield and they’d be running toward us, they’d get in good position and they’re very good stick checkers and they made some very good checks,” Gait said.

“They were all over us and we were caught off guard, not protecting our stick a lot.”

The goal at the end of the first half, sparked by Notre Dame pushing the tempo, was unexpected, Vehar said. Gait moved onto the field to talk to the referees, motioning at the scoreboard.

On the other side of the field: pure jubilation. Halfpenny turned to her players, mouth gaping, screaming and clapping. Some of her players had already spilled onto the playing field.

Before Vehar talked about whether the first-half goal was deflating or if the Orange would like to have the play back, SU attack Taylor Gait answered the question with a whisper to Majorana.

“Every goal.”

Published on April 8, 2015 at 12:42 am

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati