ALBANY — With 23:50 remaining in the second half, Syracuse earned a penalty corner. Florine Hogendoorn inserted, Roos Weers took the shot and Albany’s Melissa Nealon made a save. SU won another corner. Hogendoorn inserted, Weers shot, Nealon saved. Two more corners followed with shots and misses from Annelena Ulbrich. Finally, on the fifth consecutive attempt, Hogendoorn inserted, Emma Tufts stopped, Weers fired and scored.

“We just read them and see how they come out and feel what we feel is open,” Weers said. “It feels good. It doesn’t matter who scores but I always feel confident, it feels good to score, definitely.”

That goal was Weers’ second of the game, both coming off penalty corners. They were her first two of the season and they were enough to give No. 5 Syracuse (7-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) a 2-0 win over No. 21 Albany (2-3).

In a game where SU could not keep consistent control of the ball in the midfield, it was two set-pieces that provided the decisive blows.

In the first half, only 40 seconds into the game, Laura Hurff drove to her right toward Albany’s endline. She pushed the ball by her defender and was tripped. Just like its second goal, the first came off a Hogendoorn insert and a Tufts stop. Weers fired it by Nealon. The first corner, shot and goal of the game stopped the game clock at 33:26 with SU claiming a 1-0 lead.

Entering today, Syracuse converted on just 2-of-36 penalty corners. After Weers’ goal, eight corners went by — four in each half – where the Orange failed to score. Then Weers converted.

“We have to be able to evaluate our next opponent,” SU head coach Ange Bradley said of improving the corners. “And be able to keep working our stuff to be more consistent and better with timing and stops and hits and rebounding needs to improve for sure.”

The usual corner-inserter for the Orange prior to Friday’s game against No. 8 Boston College had been Jennifer Bleakney. Today, and on Friday, it was the freshman Hogendoorn doing the inserting. Bradley just called it a “little change.”

Regardless, the corners created open looks. Nealon made five saves just off penalty corners. Seven of the nine corners taken by SU translated into a shot on goal. Syracuse’s only other shot throughout the match came off a rebound from a penalty corner where Tufts crashed toward the goal.

“It’s really good now that we’ve been practicing a little bit more,” Tufts said. “We’ve just gotta keep capitalizing on each point. It’s really important that each set piece is on and we just do our jobs.”

Published on September 10, 2017 at 4:47 pm

Contact Billy: wmheyen@syr.edu | @Wheyen3