Entering the weekend the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team hoped to improve its standing for the NCAA tournament by knocking off No. 7 Maryland.

The Terrapins had another idea.

Maryland handed the Orange its worst defeat in program history, a 20-4 drubbing, Sunday at Maryland’s Ludwig Field. The previous Syracuse record for largest margin of defeat was 14, which was set in the first game in SU history at the hands of the Terrapins in 1998.

The No. 13 Orange (10-4) had breakdowns in every area, including inaccurate shooting, inability to box out on draw controls and simply missing groundballs. Against a quick and ferocious Maryland (10-5) team, SU’s small breakdowns amounted to a major deficit.

‘We didn’t play well,’ said Syracuse head coach Lisa Miller. ‘Maryland’s really good. Unfortunately, we picked a really good opponent to play one of our worst games of the season. It’s a bump.’

The bump puts a dent in an otherwise solid season for the Orange. With only two games left, Syracuse now shifts its attention to winning those games and making a case for entry into the NCAA tournament.

All of SU’s losses, including Sunday’s loss to Maryland, have come to opponents ranked higher than it.

‘I want to stay positive,’ said Syracuse senior Monica Joines. ‘There are a lot of teams that deserve to go. We haven’t lost to a team ranked below us and there are a lot of teams that have. We want to make sure we finish out 12-4. We think we deserve to be in the tournament and we can go far if we make it in.’

But if the Orange plays the way it did against the Terrapins, it probably won’t go far in the tournament. Maryland soundly beat SU in draw controls, 18-8, leading to long stretches where Syracuse didn’t have the ball.

After scoring the first goal of the second half, Syracuse allowed Maryland to reel off nine straight goals to end the game.

SU also failed to covert its free position shots, only scoring once on eight chances.

‘We were kinda flat,’ Joines said. ‘Everyone was hustling. It just was our heads weren’t in the game. There were too many mental errors. We wanted to take control of the game, but we never had possession long enough to make a run.’

Syracuse hopes it got all the errors out of its system during Sunday’s game. It will need an almost perfect end to the season to secure its place in the NCAA tournament.

While it has played well in almost every game this year, Syracuse has some fine tuning to do. The loss to Maryland just emphasizes the point further.

‘To beat Maryland, you have to play a perfect game,’ Miller said. ‘We’ve been searching for that perfect game all season.’

Published on April 25, 2005 at 12:00 pm