Syracuse women’s lacrosse: Sloppiness dooms Orange in 15-10 ACC quarterfinal loss to Stanford

It’s tough to win any game when you give the ball away more times than you put in on cage.

The Syracuse Orange’s downward spiral of their 2025 season continued on Wednesday night in the ACC Tournament down in Charlotte.

In their quarterfinal matchup with the Stanford Cardinal, the Orange played one of their sloppiest games of the season on their way to a 15-10 loss, their fourth in their last five games and their third in a row to drop to 9-8 on the year.

‘Cuse committed a season-high 22 turnovers in the game, completely wiping out a rare draw advantage (18-10) and finishing the game with more giveaways (22) than shots on goal (19).

The game of mood swings started quite poorly for the Orange, who found themselves down 4-1 just six minutes into the game. Stanford’s dodging proved way too much for SU’s man defense to keep up with early on, and the Cardinal connected on their first four shots of the game.

Their fifth shot rung off the crossbar, and it was scooped up by Sam DeVito, who started transition that was finished off nicely on a Carlie Desimone to Gracie Britton connection that made it 4-2 Stanford with 8:22 remaining in the first quarter.

The timing there is important, because that sequence kicked off the only positive stretch of the game for ‘Cuse. Over the next 15 minutes, the Orange went on a 7-0 run where they took complete control of the game by winning draws, limiting their turnovers, connecting on almost all their looks, and keeping the ball away from Stanford.

When the Cardinal did get the ball, SU’s switch to zone defense forced them into turnovers and shot clock violations that took away all their chances to score, literally. During the 7-0 run, Stanford did not take a single shot from the one that hit the crossbar with 8:39 left in the first quarter until they ended the ‘Cuse run at the 8:04 mark of the second.

For roughly one quarter of the game, everything was coming up Orange as they utilized the old make-it-take-it and made a defensive switch that befuddled their opponent, scoring seven goals in the same time Stanford took zero shots.

The seventh and final goal of the run was a historic moment, as Emma Ward found Gracie Britton for the goal with an assist that helped Emma pass Katie Rowan for the most assists in program history with 165 for her career. It’s a wonderful accomplishment for one of the most productive careers SU has ever seen.

While that great moment punctuated the seven-goal run and gave SU an 8-4 lead at the time, the good vibes were all too short-lived. Stanford ended their 15-minute-plus drought to make it 8-5 with just over eight minutes left in the half, and that’s the lead the Orange took into the break.

The second half was more or less an unmitigated disaster for SU. The turnovers got ramped up in the third quarter as the struggling offense started forcing some looks and missing connections against the aggressive Stanford zone. They’ve had trouble all season long getting out of danger and attacking with purpose and efficiency when a team is quick to double the ball carrier, and that trend continued in this game.

On the other end, the Cardinal were moving the ball effectively and finding ways to break down ‘Cuse’s zone, scoring the first five goals of the quarter to re-take the lead at 10-8.

Gracie Britton scored her third goal of the game late in the third on a nice shot from just above GLE to offer some hope as the Orange headed to the final frame with just a one-goal deficit at 10-9.

Stanford quickly stomped that out, though, scoring the first four goals of the fourth quarter to put the game away for good.

In the utter domination that was the second half, Stanford scored 10 goals on 10-of-14 shooting (71.4 percent). In contrast, ‘Cuse scored two goals on 2-of-12 shooting (16.7 percent) while committing as many turnovers as shots taken (12). The result was a second half that swung from +3 Syracuse to +5 Stanford by the time the final 30 minutes ran out.

This game was a perfect example of the ways that draw controls can be misleading. Officially, Syracuse had a solid advantage on draw controls in this game with an 18-10 final line. However, by my own count, I saw five draw wins for SU where Stanford was able to cause a turnover (primarily with well-timed stick checks) before the Orange ever established possession in the offensive zone.

So, that means that the actual possession gained off a draw control was actually a 15-13 advantage for Stanford rather than the official 18-10 edge for ‘Cuse. It happens to a certain extent in every game, but this was an extreme case in which the draw control stat line was wildly misleading given what happened after initial possession was gained.

And those turnovers off draw wins helped feed into the season-high tally of 22 turnovers for SU. You have to credit Stanford, who are very aggressive and did a fantastic job in the stick-check department (they finished the game with an incredible 16 caused turnovers), but the bottom line is that no team can allow possession to be taken from them 22 times and realistically hope to win a game against a good team.

Another big disparity in this game was the goalie play. Both starting goalies got subbed out of the game for brief periods of struggle, but the final stats were very telling. Stanford’s goalies combined for nine saves against 10 goals-against (47.4 percent), while ‘Cuse’s goalies combined for three saves against 15 goals-against (16.7 percent). The Cardinal made six more saves and won the game by five. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Gracie Britton (3G, 2A) led the charge on the day with a hat trick and five points. Alexa Vogelman (3G, 2GB, 2DC) also had a hat trick, going 3-for-3 on free position chances. Joely Caramelli (2G), Caroline Trinkaus (1G, 1A) and Carlie Desimone (2A) all finished with two points. Emma Muchnick (1G) scored a goal, while Emma Ward (1A) only had the one assist and one shot for the game. She was doubled immediately virtually every time she touched it, and Stanford was mostly able to mitigate any impact she had.