When Syracuse and then-No. 8 Boston College went into extra time, it came down to a situation Syracuse has seen 67 times across the season: a penalty corner. With Kira Wimbert on the insert, she shot the ball toward senior Roos Weers. Weers dragged the ball immediately out of the circle before pulling it back in again and firing the ball into the cage.

It was Syracuse’s only top-10 win of the season.

The postseason is all that is left for No. 17 Syracuse (8-7, 1-5 Atlantic Coast), which has generated a majority of its offensive success from the penalty corner. 61 percent of SU’s goals scored were set up off a corner, including two game winners. SU’s adeptness at penalty corners propelled the offense in almost all of its eight wins this season.

“It’s an important part of it,” SU head coach Ange Bradley said. “We work on that quite a bit, sometimes it’s better than others, but we keep practicing.”

In total, Syracuse has put 16 of its 64 penalty corners in the back of the cage. Less than half of SU’s 81 shots on goal came in open play.

Penalty corners are awarded when a penalty occurs inside the circle. Often times, it’s awarded because a player hits the ball with her foot instead of her stick, or a number of other minor infractions in the circle. During a penalty corner, one player stands a few feet to the left of the goal to insert the ball into play. The rest of the offense lines up around the arc with the best shooter at the top of the arc.

The Orange spend about an hour a day practicing the corner, senior Jamie Martin said. First, they’ll do a few warm-up rounds, shooting on goal, before going “live.” When they go live, they face the defense in a simulation of what an in-game penalty corner would look like. The main unit on offense will take a few reps before switching to the main unit on defense.

Players analyze the circle to decide if they want to shoot or try to earn a penalty corner. They are supposed to look at where they are in the circle, Bradley said, as well as the defenders and how much space they have, to determine if they should shoot or not.

“It’s learning to read and teaching kids to read what the defense presents, and then knowing what tool to use based on the situation presented to them,” Bradley said.

In the season opener against Vermont, two of Syracuse’s four goals came directly off penalty corners and a third came off a rebounded penalty corner shot. In two of SU’s six overtime games — a 2-1 win over Boston College and a 3-2 win over Pacific — it was a penalty corner that caused the Orange to rush the field, celebrating their victories.

Anytime the Orange are in the circle, players agree that getting any kind of “outcome” is the ultimate goal, whether that outcome is a penalty corner or a goal.

SU is entering its postseason where any outcome will be important, as the Orange battle their way through the ACC tournament and attempt to get a bid to the NCAA tournament.

“I mean obviously scoring is better than getting penalty corners,” Wimbert said. “We always just want to get an outcome. That’s all that matters.”

Published on November 1, 2018 at 1:15 am

Contact Kaci: klwasile@syr.edu