By SAMUEL C. SCOTT

Crimson Staff Writer

Syracuse owned the first ten minutes of yesterday afternoon’s women’s lacrosse game, and despite a close second half, Harvard never managed to offset the Orange’s early onslaught.

No. 13 Syracuse (3-2) scored four goals in less than eight minutes to seize the early lead, as they went on to deal the Crimson (2-1) its first loss of the season a 10-4 margin.

Senior Caitlyn Dragon struck on a fast break in 28 seconds to begin the Orange’s streak. Syracuse was best able to dissect the shaky Harvard defense not on breaks, however, but from a set offense. It posed a major offensive threat in the crease—and the most puissant weapon in their arsenal was Dragon.

“I think [Dragon] has a lot of height, and she’s a really strong attacker. She definitely beat us around the crease a lot,” co-captain defender Kelly Noon said. “She definitely took advantage of our weakness in the first half.”

Dragon led scoring for the Orange with four goals in the game, including two in the first five minutes of play. She also assisted on two more.

“We just let in a couple of really quick goals that gave them a head of steam we couldn’t recover from,” co-captain attack Catherine Sproul said.

The Crimson found its legs later in the half—a reversal of last week, when Harvard came out strong but slipped in the second half against Quinnipiac.

“I think in the beginning Syracuse came at us really hard and we weren’t as ready for that as we should have been,” Noon said.

The Crimson gained a foothold in the game when Sproul scored with 21:28 left in the half, with sophomore midfielder Caroline Hines assisting.

For the rest of the game, Syracuse held a substantial lead but did not control play as effectively as they did for the first few minutes.

“If you take the last 45 or 50 minutes of the game, it was only 6-4,” Sproul said. “I think we were scared early, but we’re not worse than this team.”

Sproul led scoring for Harvard with two goals, also sinking one from a free position shot in the midpoint of the second half.

Crimson freshman Natalie Curtis made a fierce showing in midfield and picked up a goal from free position late in the first. Attack Tara Schoen scored the final goal of the game on an assist from junior midfielder Allison Kaveney with 10:43 left.