Syracuse forward Alysha Burriss turned around and saw her teammates mob each other in front of the Connecticut goal. Goalie Jenn Gilligan almost fell off the bench.

The Orange had just tied the game with .1 seconds remaining in the third period.

“It was a reward for the team for the way they handled the third period,” SU head coach Paul Flanagan said.

After trailing for the entire third period, center Jessica Sibley forced home a goal just before the buzzer sounded to send Syracuse (1-1-4) into overtime against Connecticut (2-3-2). An active second period yielded three goals between the teams but the Orange was the only team to score again as it tied the Huskies, 2-2, in front of 187 at Tennity Ice Pavilion on Sunday evening. With the result, the Orange has tied four straight games.

With 1:16 left in the third and his team trailing by one, Flanagan called a timeout and pulled his goalie, Gilligan, leaving six skaters on the ice.

“You try to execute a play, which is basically get pucks on net,” he said of the team’s strategy with a pulled goalie. “Just try to make a play, get pucks on net, crash the net, maybe get an ugly one down low.”

For 60 seconds, the Orange couldn’t do any of that. Off the initial faceoff, the Huskies quickly cleared the puck into the Syracuse zone. Syracuse defenders chased it down and brought the puck back through the neutral zone and into the attacking third, but SU was called offside.

Connecticut won the faceoff in the neutral zone and again sent the puck toward the empty Orange net.

“Mild heart attack on the bench,” Gilligan said.

But the puck was stopped just short of the net she wasn’t defending and SU again looked to bring the puck forward, now with less than 30 seconds remaining.

SU center Stephanie Grossi fired a shot from the right wing that Huskie goalie Annie Belanger saved.

Seconds later, a faceoff was called and the clock showed less than 12 seconds remaining. But after a short discussion, the referees chose to add an extra second to the clock.

“We were lucky that we had that second added back on the clock,” Flanagan said. “Thank goodness.”

On the ensuing faceoff, Sibley won possession in the left circle and worked the puck around to the right, eventually finding Burriss on the wing.

Knowing the clock was running down, Burriss hurried a wrist shot on net as Sibley moved in and got her stick on the puck, tipping it in as the buzzer sounded.

“I didn’t see it go in,” said Burriss, who used her teammates’ reactions to judge the outcome of the play.

The officials called on the replay system that may have cost the Orange a game on Saturday, when a malfunctioning camera cost Syracuse a goal. Burriss said the players were “pretty sure it went in” on Sunday, but Flanagan was skeptical.

“It’ll work today, but it’ll work against us,” he said.

But he was wrong. The referee came back on the ice and sliced his arm down, pointing toward the net and indicating the goal was good.

The Orange crowd came to life in overtime, as SU’s defense didn’t allow a single shot on goal. Though SU managed five, Syracuse wasn’t able to put home a winner.

“It’s frustrating,” Sibley said. “We just need to keep doing the little things, that’s for sure.

“Not satisfied with the tie, we need Ws.”

Published on October 19, 2014 at 9:20 pm