Boston College Lacrosse Defeats #3 Syracuse in Back and Forth Battle

#4 Boston College continued its streak of beating top ranked teams today, eking out a 14-13 victory over #3 Syracuse. The Eagles are now 12-1 on the season and have only lost to #1 UNC.

The big differential in today’s match was draw controls, with BC winning 18 draw controls to Syracuse’s 10. Charlotte North accounted for 8 of those BC wins. The teams otherwise played a fairly evenly matched game, with BC managing 18 shots on goal to Syracuse’s 17, grabbing 19 ground balls to Syracuse’s 16, and falling behind on clear 19-17. Both goalies made just 4 saves, although Rachel Hall came up huge for BC in the last minute of play to keep Syracuse from sending the game into overtime.

Caitlynn Mossman scored the first goal of the game about 3:30 into play, followed by 3 more BC goals (from Jenn Medjid, Courtney Weeks, and Cara Urbank) to give the Eagles an early 4-0 lead. Syracuse’s Megan Carney fought back with a pair of goals of her own, but a 2 goal deficit was as close as the Orange could get to BC during the first half. The Eagle ultimately took an 8-6 lead into halftime.

The Orange opened the scoring in the second half, but Charlotte North quickly retaliated with an unassisted goal to regain BC’s 2 point lead. A trio of unanswered Syracuse goals then gave the Orange their first lead of the game, and the teams traded points for the remainder of the match, staying tied pretty consistently.

Medjid took advantage of a man-up opportunity with just 1:04 remaining to give BC a 1 goal lead as time wound down. The Eagles lost the subsequent draw control, but Hall’s aforementioned save kept the Eagles in the lead, and BC kept possession for the final seconds of the game, securing their victory.

As usual, Charlotte North led BC’s offense, scoring 5 goals today. Caitlynn Mossman also picked up a hat trick, and Courtney Weeks and Jenn Medjid each scored a pair of goals. BC’s remaining goals were scored by Cara Urbank and Belle Smith.

These two teams will meet again on Saturday to close out the regular season in what is sure to be another nail-biter.