LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It took an hour and 17 minutes to get Friday’s game going. In 22-degrees, Trager Stadium’s field developed a sheet of ice over its turf before Syracuse’s first Final Four appearance. So out came field zambonis, rock salt and commercial heaters to thaw the ground.

But cold prevailed.

‘It was rough,’ said Wake Forest head coach Jen Averill, after her team defeated the Orange in overtime, 3-2. ‘You’re trying to tell (your players) to go after everything, and they do, and they lose their footing and there down.

‘It was rough for us. It was rough for Syracuse. So it kind of made it an equal playing field for both teams.’

Friday night’s weather caused all sorts of problems, beginning with the delay of game. Bodies slid across the turf – some lost balance – causing players to fall into one another or to lose possession. Dark patches of turf, marked by players’ footwork on the frosted field, created an uneven playing field. Cold players exhaled fog.

‘It’s our weather. It’s perfect. We loved it,’ Syracuse head coach Ange Bradley said. ‘Our kids wore shorts and didn’t wear (under) shirts on.’

Regardless, the field worked against Syracuse’s favor just 10 minutes into the game.

On an attempt to clear the arc in the first half, a pass to back Ann-Sophie Van der Post bounced high off her stick. Wake Forest forward Hilary Moore saw the ball as it undulated closer to SU’s cage, rushed the left of the arc and tapped the ball stick-side for first goal of the game.

‘The surface was really hard,’ Bradley said. ‘And I don’t want to makes excuses, bottom line is that we didn’t execute, but it gave a little bit of a bounce and if I could do it again I would adjust some calls I made on corners.’

As the slick surface increased the speed of the ball, two attempts to stop the outlet pass from Maggie Beffort on the penalty corner caused unpredictable changes in movement. None of SU’s eight penalty corner opportunities were converted.

‘It was like playing in an indoor facility,’ Averill said. ‘The ball was just zipping around with so much speed.’

Moore noticed the cold’s effect when she first walked on Trager Stadium’s field – she she began slipping. But once the game started, the factor went the back of her mind.

‘I really didn’t notice that the game was so cold until the game ended, and then I was like, ‘Oh, wow,” Moore said.

As the game drew into overtime, the field began to show discolor – a mint green – covered entirely by a layer of frost. And the officials acknowledged the factor.

Averill noticed that the referees awarded Syracuse a free hit from the Deacons’ half in the second, even though the ball didn’t go entirely out-of-bounds. She asked for explanation.

‘They said, ‘Coach the sidelines are completely iced over,” Averill recalled. ‘Fair enough.’

The frost on the field worked against Wake Forest as well.

Toward the middle of the second half, Deacons’ forward Kim Romansky countered a pass along the midfield, ran to SU’s arc, turned away from an Orange defender and passed it along the endline.

‘It was the perfect pass,’ said Moore, who was on the receiving end. But the forward slipped as the Romansky’s ball came out to the stroke mark of SU’s arc, and kicked the ball past Orange goalkeeper Heather Hess.

Her stick was there, but she couldn’t evade the ice. Moore’s hat trick and a 3-2 lead could of come before overtime, it could have ended the game there but officials were quick to rule off the goal.

‘You can’t let it affect you,’ Shannon Taylor said.

But it did.

In front of Wake Forest’s cage, goalkeeper Crystal Duffield knew that if field was slick for her, it was slick for the opposing offense. Duffield changed her strategy and focused on placing her body well behind the ball. She ended the game with five saves.

The Orange and Wake Forest got into their element for 79:04 on the ice-field. Both teams were forced to.

‘You can’t control the weather,’ Duffield said.

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on November 22, 2008 at 12:00 pm