When watching Syracuse women’s lacrosse this season remember how young they are. Remember they lost two of their top scorers. Remember that their former All-American defender is coming off of a brutal ACL injury suffered more than a year ago. That will make how fast and how athletic they are that much more incredible.
The Orange opened their season up Thursday with a 19-14 stomping of the Colgate Red Raiders. It was the sixth consecutive season-opening win for Syracuse.
Senior Tee Ladoucer torched the Red Raiders for seven points. Ladoucer netted a game-high six goals and added an assist. She said despite the team losing two of their leading scorers in Christina Dove and Halley Quillnan, Syracuse is loaded with offensive weapons.
“I think those are two players you can’t really replace. They’re two of the best players I’ve ever played with,” Ladoucer said. “As an attacking unit as a whole, we’re just going to have to step up big and work together. You’re not going to see a lot from one or two people but from everyone.”
Ladoucer worked closely with teammate Michelle Tumolo all night in attacking the Red Raider defense. Tumolo set the freshman record for points and goals last year and in the off-season, she played on the U.S. National Team.
Tumolo had only one goal on the night but added four assists. In a scary moment for the Syracuse bench, Tumolo cut in front of the Colgate net and took a sharp dive to the ground. She lay there for several seconds before slowly getting up and staying on the field. She said all was well after the game.
“We just collided knees, I’ll probably have a good bruise there tomorrow,” Tumolo said. “I’m a tough player so once I get hit I’ll get right back up.”
Syracuse jumped on the Red Raiders 3-0 and never looked back. The closest Colgate came was a push mid-way through the first half to cut Syracuse’s lead to two. After that, however, the speed and quickness of Syracuse’s offense took over and the Orange bombarded Colgate with an 8-1 run to put the game clearly out of reach 10 minutes into the second half.
The offense peppered Colgate goalkeeper Christina Roa with 42 shots overall, including a nifty rebound late in the second half. An errant Syracuse shot bounced off goalpipe, but before anyone could react, another Orange player snapped it into the goal.
It was a true team effort as 10 Orange players found the back of the net, including freshmen Alyssa Murray and Katie Webster. Murray, who spent all of last summer and fall recovering from an ACL tear, netted two goals and dished out two assists in her first career start.
SU head coach Gary Gait had high praise for both of his freshmen attackers.
“Alyssa, she’s an elite player, she always has been. She’s only going to get better as she gets more comfortable,” he said.
Webster notched a goal and an assist, and seemed to be everywhere on the field at once.
“Katie Webster’s just an athlete. She’s up and down the field; she’s quick, and she’s fast. She really did a lot for us in the midfield,” Gait said. “We’re just looking for her to build a little more confidence. We really just wanted to let them feel the game out. We had so many new players out there, we weren’t calling a lot of plays. We were just letting them play and seeing the lacrosse IQ of some of these young players.”
Next up, Syracuse travels to Stanford for its first road trip of the season. The Orange return to action in the Carrier Dome February 27 against Virginia.
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