Alex Bassil’s head slumped in front of his body.

The junior peered down at the turf, then back up at the white ball in the back of the net, then back down at the turf. To his left, Brendan Bomberry paraded around the left corner of the end zone. Bomberry’s teammates smothered him and the Carrier Dome crowd echoed that sentiment.

“It’s been that kind of season,” North Carolina head coach Joe Breschi said. “Consoling them is tough. You make a save and you’re smiling. You don’t and your miserable.”

The differences in emotion encapsulated Saturday’s contest between the two teams. North Carolina (6-7, 0-3 Atlantic Coast) looked primed for an upset in the Dome, a place the Tar Heels have not won at since 1991. For 56 minutes, No. 7 Syracuse (7-4, 4-0) couldn’t match UNC’s intensity, its desperation. But with the game on the line, Syracuse rose to the occasion in overtime while North Carolina folded in defeat.

The win gives Syracuse a perfect record in the ACC for the second-consecutive season and a second-straight No. 1 seed in the conference tournament in Charlottesville, Virginia, in two weeks’ time. Syracuse has not lost an regular-season ACC game in 742 days. The Orange’s prize for a perfect conference record is a date with Virginia on the Cavaliers home turf in the first round.

“We made a lot of mistakes,” Syracuse head coach John Desko said. “This is going to be a long film session on Monday, but all in all to come out with a win, this was a good experience for us.”

But North Carolina narrowly missed sneaking in a win against SU in the Dome. With 7:22 left, UNC led 12-9 and still led 12-10 with 4:26 remaining.

All game, SU failed to convert on its opportunities while the Tar Heels took advantage. When the scoreboard read 12-9, the game was puzzling because SU was beating UNC in nearly every facet of the game including shots, ground balls, faceoffs and penalties.

During the first half, SU’s struggles came offensively. The Orange won 60 percent of its first-half faceoffs and shot 17 times, but could only convert on four opportunities, including one on a man-up opportunity, and turned the ball over seven times.

“I didn’t think we had very good possessions,” Desko said. “I wasn’t happy with our shot selection. Very sloppy.”

But while the offense failed to convert on its chances, the defense held UNC in check. The Tar Heels mirrored SU with 17 shots, four goals and seven turnovers in the first 30 minutes.

Come the second half, UNC began to convert, while the Orange focused on playing catch-up. The two sides combined for eight goals in the third quarter, matching the total from the entire first half.

Neither team played defense, Desko said, and instead, the game was focused on quick, forced shots, that often led to turnovers or wild misses. Despite scoring three goals in the period, SU struggled to keep pace with UNC. And the same happened in the fourth quarter. After two quick Nate Solomon goals to begin the final period and tie the game at 9-9, UNC rattled off three scores to take a seemingly commanding 12-9 lead.

It wasn’t looking promising, Desko said. The game was coming to a close with UNC on top. Over the next three minutes, SU recorded just one shot and failed to get open looks. But with the game on the line, Brendan Curry took over.

After Stephen Rehfuss cut UNC’s lead to two, Curry raced around the right side of Bassil, separating himself from his defender before turning over his left shoulder and firing a shot into the back of the net. Fifty seconds later, he used that speed to beat Cole Haverty and rip another shot past Bassil.

The freshman opened up his arms for his teammates to come hug him after punching the air and screaming to the ceiling.

When the game mattered most, SU battled back. After a potential UNC game-winner missed wide to force overtime, SU won the opening possession in the extra period before the two Brendans – Curry to Bomberry – connected for the game-winning goal.

“You just saw how hard he was going to the goal,” Desko said. “We were feeling it with him and we decided that’s who we wanted to have the ball at the end of the game.”

Syracuse won on the stat sheet but couldn’t take advantage on the scoreboard until the last four minutes of the game. In its last 15 one-goal games, Syracuse is 13-2.

Despite UNC’s effectiveness for 56 minutes, and SU’s lack of it, the Orange proved itself once again in its most important moment.

Published on April 14, 2018 at 6:31 pm

Contact Matt: mdliberm@syr.edu