Mary Randazzo neared the middle of the field, looked to her left and passed to a teammate. But Randazzo did not see SU’s Kathy Rudkin cutting across the field. Rudkin deflected the pass and passed the ball downfield.

Plays like that helped No. 5 Syracuse (4-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) beat UMass (1-3), 17-8, Saturday evening in its forth straight blowout of the season. A 5-0 run in the middle of the first half sparked the offense. Eight SU players had multiple points. Despite turning the ball over more than twice its average, SU came away with another easy victory.

This marks the first time the Orange have faced the Minutewomen since 2006, when the Orange won at home, 15-9.

“It’s always nice to be home in the dome,” said head coach Gary Gait, “and have a very well coached UMass team come in here.”

In each of the last three games, Syracuse had long, unanswered scoring runs in the beginning of the first half and the middle of the second half. At most, the Orange scored seven on one run. Against UMass, there was one five-score run in the middle of the first half.

Alie Jimerson started SU’s run. She stood directly behind the net, where she caught the ball. She ran around the left side of the net, past a group of Minutewomen and to the front of the goal, where she shot the ball past the goalie’s right hip and into the side of the net. Soon Riley Donahue, Mary Rahal and Nicole Levy, who had two goals, followed with scores.

Donahue had one other goal at the beginning of the game, as well as three assists. Her five points led the team. Kelzi Van Atta, Taylor Gait, Neena Merola and Emily Hawryschuk round out the eight.

“There’s a lot of different players that got to score,” Donahue said, “and I think that says a lot about the team and how we work well together.”

Despite the 17 goals scored and the blowout outcome, the Orange played a game riddled with turnovers. Prior to Saturday’s game, SU averaged 9.66 turnovers a game. In Saturday’s game, they had 25 turnovers. Goalie Asa Goldstock led SU with three turnovers and seven others had two turnovers apiece.

For five of UMass’s eight goals, SU had a turnover within one minute of the goal being scored. Still, Syracuse had enough offensive fire power to double its opponent and win by nine.

“They’re not all going to play great every single day,” SU head coach Gary Gait said. “They’re going to make mistakes, but it’s how they rebound from it and how they focus and prepare for the next game.”

Published on February 25, 2017 at 10:20 pm

Contact Kaci: klwasile@syr.edu