STORRS, Conn. – With little left on the clock, Jack Conrad stood on George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex bleachers Sunday to see his daughter line up for a penalty corner – the final play – in a scoreless Big East Championship match against Connecticut. Lindsay Conrad lined up at the top right of the arc, where Jack never saw her before.

‘This has to be a play for Lindsay,’ he leaned over and told Jack Voelmle, the father of Lena Voelmle.

Conrad took the shot. Back Maggie Befort tipped it, and the Orange fooled Connecticut with a ‘plan’ that ended the Huskies’ four-year reign as Big East Champions, 1-0.

Ange Bradley drew up the plan a week ago. The team practiced it three or four times.

Should Shannon Taylor become the focus of the opposing defense at the Big East Tournament during the weekend, the penalty corner play Bradley had devised would be the perfect trick up SU’s sleeve.

On a corner, Taylor would anticipate the ball, lift her stick’s handle like she had it, then swing at open air. But the ball would be sent rightward to a waiting Conrad, who would smash it into the opposite side of the opponent’s cage.

‘I didn’t think that we would have to use it,’ Taylor said.

Bradley devised the play after viewing tape of SU’s 1-0 loss to UConn at J.S. Coyne Stadium Oct. 18, Syracuse’s only loss of the season. The head coach saw that wherever Taylor went, the Huskies defense went with her. So when Connecticut head coach Nancy Stevens took her final timeout with minutes left, Bradley said inside SU’s final huddle that should they win a penalty corner, they would run that play for Conrad.

All Syracuse had to do was to get a penalty corner.

As the possibility of overtime came closer to reality, official Grant Hudley called UConn Jill Kleeblad for obstruction. The freshman forward had touched SU’s ball after the whistle. NCAA field hockey rules prohibit touching an opponent’s dead ball, as it can halt a team’s tempo.

‘What our player was doing was lightly tapping the ball to the SU player who was asking for it,’ Stevens said. ‘She’s too nice. She fouled. I hoped (the official) would accept it in the spirit of the game.’

Taylor raised her arms when she saw the call. Conrad ran to the top right of the arc. Stevens had no clue what was about to unfold.

Of the four prior attempts to convert on the penalty corner, Taylor would receive the ball and shoot. When the Orange defeated Providence, 3-1, in the first round Saturday, Taylor shot all nine opportunities.

‘I was expecting No. 11, sure,’ Stevens said. ‘What happened at the end was they executed.’

Taylor looked over to the sideline to confer with Bradley, Taylor said. Bradley nodded.Befort took a deep breathe, she said, and sent the ball to the top of the arc. Taylor raised her stick and drew the clogged UConn defense to the left side of the field. Then she swung at air.

‘We knew everybody knew we’d go with Shannon Taylor,’ Bradley said. ‘What makes us a great team is that we have a lot of players that can score.’

Conrad can shoot hard. She had 19 goals this season – second only behind Taylor. So Bradley designed the plan around Conrad, who usually stands at midfield during penalty corners waiting for a counter opportunity, knowing she always had composure under pressure.

‘Lindsay Conrad has ice in her veins,’ Bradley said.

The ball went right to the flat edge of Lindsay’s stick and went across to the right of Huskies goalkeeper Andrea Mainiero. Befort laid her stick out and deflected the ball into an open cage.

‘It was the perfect play. Lindsay’s shot couldn’t have been more perfect,’ Befort said. ‘We were just waiting to whip it out, and we whipped it out at the perfect time.’

The fake, the stop, the shot, the plan. Perfect.

Time expired and Jack Conrad, Lindsay’s father, rushed to the steel fence near the field. And Conrad embraced him, arms over the fence.

‘She was just at the right place at the right time,’ he said.

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on November 9, 2008 at 12:00 pm