Syracuse Women's Hockey Falls in Home Opener

The Orange could not find the back of the net in its home debut.

Things have been very shaky for the Syracuse Women’s Ice Hockey to start the 2022 season. After a 1-2 road trip in which saw the Orange shut out twice, they return home for the first time this season. The outcome was a losing a hard fought battle 2-0 against the St. Lawrence Saints.

The Orange got off to a slow start, as St. Lawrence, coming in 1-3 to start the season, outshoot Syracuse 14-4 in the first period. Goalie Arellie DeSmet did her best to keep up with the onslaught, but eventually Defensemen Kiley Mastel shot her second goal of the season at 13:51 in the first quarter to give the Saints a 1-0 lead.

After that, the second period came to a grinding halt, with Syracuse being outshoot again 24-7. At 7:51, DeSmet became the fifth player in Syracuse Women’s Ice Hockey History to record 1,500 career saves.

“I knew it was coming but it still kind of caught my off guard. It’s always crazy to hit a new milestone like that, so it was really exciting.” DeSmet said after the game.

The third period was the strongest showing by the Orange, as their defense was able to keep St. Lawrence had the fewest shots in the period with 10, but the Orange only managed to get two shots in the period.

After keeping the St.Lawrence offense quiet after the first period, Syracuse head coach Britni Smith made the decision to take DeSmet out of the net with less than one minute left in the game in an attempt to strengthen the offensive push. Unfortunately, a shot by St. Lawrence forward Anna Segedi went into the empty net, putting the saints up 2-0, and sealing any hope of a comeback for the orange.

Despite being shut out for the third time in four games this season, Coach Smith is not pushing the panic button just yet, as she sees that the team is improving by the third period.

“With possession will come offense, so it’s finding that way,” Smith said. “Luckily we’ll have the day off tomorrow, it’s not off, they have practice tomorrow, to try to find ways to generate more offense.”

The Orange will look to take what they learned from this game on the road, as they travel to Canton, New York this Saturday, October 8th to finish off their series against St. Lawrence. You can watch the game at 3pm on ESPN+.