SYRACUSE, NY — Shyanne Sellers collected a rebound and stole a peek upcourt midway through the second quarter against Syracuse. Christina Dalce, free from a foul-trouble-induced stay on the bench, was sprinting forward on the break. A lone defender stood between Dalce and the basket.
Sellers found Dalce with an inch-perfect pass. The Villanova transfer took a dribble and dropped a left hook through the rim for Maryland’s 11th straight point. Syracuse took a timeout in an effort to stop the barrage, but the damage had been done.
Maryland had retaken the lead thanks to their second-quarter explosion and would not relinquish it from then on, beating Syracuse 84-73 at the JMA Wireless Dome. The Terps moved to 7-0 all-time against Syracuse with Wednesday’s win.
“Road wins are precious, and it’s really hard to win on the road, especially against a really good team like Syracuse,” Frese admitted. “I thought Syracuse was really extra motivated from the last game. They came out hot shooting the ball, and really put us on our heels in the first quarter.”
The Terps started out flat in the midweek road contest. A tough layup from Kaylene Smikle and a Sarah Te-Biasu uncontested triple put Maryland up 7-6 early in the first quarter; over the next six minutes though, the Terps shot 1-11.
Meanwhile, Syracuse’s Georgia Woolley came out firing early on. The senior guard drilled three of her first four shots to give the Orange their first eight points. Teammate Sophie Burrows added two threes to close out the first quarter, with Syracuse ending the frame with a 20-14 lead.
The Orange pushed their lead to as much as 10 with eight minutes remaining in the half. From that moment, however, Maryland’s offense switched on.
Allie Kubek sprinted off on the break and made a quick layup, setting the tone for a 15-point Maryland run that turned the game on its head.
Fresh off of her season high in points on Sunday, Bri McDaniel made back-to-back baskets, before Sellers splashed a pullup three-pointer. Dalce’s lead-taking layup fell in the middle of Maryland’s barrage. Kubek then capped the run that she started with another layup.
Maryland overwhelmed the Orange with baskets coming in the paint, from mid-range, and from deep — all in a four-minute span.
“I think we have great chemistry because we play for 40 minutes, hard, every time – no matter if we get down by ten, we’re all going to come out… [everyone] have such competitiveness that they don’t want to give up just [lets us] come back every single time,” Smikle said after the game.
Syracuse’s offensive cold spell broke with 4 minutes remaining in the half, but Maryland was able to go on another run — this time 10-2 — to close the first half up by 11.
The game flow became far choppier in the third quarter.
Both teams traded baskets as play got sloppier, with the two combining for six fouls in the first five minutes. The Terps committed five turnovers in a row on offense in a poor stretch midway through the quarter, but the lapse in concentration went unpunished thanks to a disoriented offensive run from the Orange.
An extended break for Syracuse center Izabel Varejão — who picked up her fourth foul early in the third quarter — allowed the Maryland frontcourt to feast. Kubek scored seven points and Dalce added three, all via shots or fouls from inside the paint.
“[Allie] was really aggressive, finishing plays, making layups, [and] I thought that defensively, she gave us a lot with the size they had inside… she played the most minutes of anyone out there, we needed to have her on both ends of the floor,” Frese said.
Maryland entered the final quarter with a smaller lineup on the court but still relied on Dalce’s presence near the rim. The forward had a chaotic stretch with nine minutes remaining, which resulted in a hard-fought score.
Dalce grabbed an offensive board, put up a layup that fell short, grabbed her own rebound, missed that layup, collected the ensuing rebound, and finally got fouled. She made one of the free throws.
Syracuse pressed the Terps in the fourth, cutting Maryland to a two-possession lead on multiple occasions midway through the quarter. Maryland bent but didn’t break.
Kubek missed a close-range layup but Smikle dropped in a second-chance floater, extending Maryland’s advantage to eight, with four and a half minutes remaining.
Syracuse refused to go away, though.
Just a few possessions after Smikle’s make, the Orange stole a wayward pass from McDaniel. Woolley sprinted the other way and successfully dribbled past several Terps, cutting the lead to four.
Back-to-back defensive fouls hurt Syracuse’s comeback chances.
Poffenbarger and Smikle each made two free throws before the latter intercepted an audacious pass and sank two more to ice the game for the Terps. Smikle finished with a game-high 22 points and went a perfect 10-10 from the line, her third straight game with 20-plus points.
“Her percentages are great, from the field, from the three-point line, and now we need to work on her assist-to-turnover ratio and her defense,” Frese said. “We got one part of her game that’s really, really good, the other part we’ve got to work on.”
Frese and the Terps understand that there is plenty of season remaining, and plenty of growth left in this squad. But on Wednesday night, Maryland passed another early test.
