Women’s lacrosse falls in NCAA quarterfinals

The women’s lacrosse team’s undefeated season came to a screeching halt on Saturday with a 12-11 overtime loss to Syracuse in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals at the Carrier Dome in New York, ending the Trojans’ season in heartbreaking fashion.

The Women of Troy (20-1) rallied from a 3-goal deficit with under six minutes to play in regulation to force overtime, only to have Syracuse junior Kelly Cross score the game-winner with three minutes and 21 seconds remaining in the first overtime session. Cross took a pass from Halle Majorana and buried it from point-blank to send the Orange (19-5) to their fifth consecutive semifinals appearance in the NCAA tournament.

It was a back-and-forth first half that ended with the score deadlocked 5-5. The Trojans scored the first two goals of the second half on tallies by senior midfielder Amanda Johansen and junior attacker Cynthia Del Core. But the Orange went on a 3-0 run, with two goals by Majorana to give her a hat trick in the second half and Syracuse a 8-7 advantage.

Johansen equalized with her fourth goal of the game, but the Orange connected on three straight goals once again over the next five minutes to give them an 11-8 lead. Still, the Trojans swung the pendulum back in their favor with the next two goals, and Del Core equalized with under two minutes remaining as she took a feed from Johansen across the middle and fired it in.

Johansen, who was all over the place in the game, had a chance to win it in the dying seconds as she dodged left and attacked the net aggressively, but was stopped by the glove of Syracuse goaltender Allie Murray.

In overtime, a turnover by junior attacker Kylie Drexel handed possession to the Orange, who called timeout and set up the game-winning goal by Cross.

The Women of Troy had been perfect in 1-goal games this season, though this was the first time they played a game that went to overtime. They are now 0-4 all-time in overtime games. The 12 goals was the most allowed by USC this season. USC defeated Stanford handily in the second round of the NCAA Tournament before running into Syracuse.

The loss is a bittersweet end to a historic season for the fifth-ranked women’s lacrosse team, which won all 17 regular season games for the first time in its four-year history and cruised through the MPSF Tournament.

Junior attacker Michaela Michael moved into second place in MPSF history for single-season goals after scoring her 68th goal of the season in the loss. The 99 points she scored on the season are also a USC record and fifth in MPSF history.