MOUNT PLEASANT -- Goals came early and often in the Central Michigan field hockey team’s season opener against Syracuse at the CMU Field Hockey Complex on Friday. The Chippewas (0-1, 0-0 Mid-American) dropped an 8-3 decision to the Orange after battling back from a 2-0 deficit to knot the game at two.

Central came out of the gate slowly, as the Orange jumped up 2-0 just over four minutes into the match off goals from Kristin Girouard and Shannon Taylor.

The Chippewas fought back to tie it when they scored two goals in a span of 1:27. Freshman Brooke Sihota scored her first career collegiate goal to get CMU on the board and senior Moyra Betuzzi responded to tie the contest up at the 11:46 mark.

“I thought that we did a very good job coming back to tie it up in the first half,” head coach Cristy Freese said. “We did a nice job regaining our composure without burning our timeout.”

The Orange (3-0, 0-0 Big East) scored twice more before halftime, the later off a corner in the closing seconds to take a two goal lead into the break, 4-2.

Pam Seufert scored off a rebound from a Kim Erasmus shot with 12:30 remaining to bring the Chippewas back to within two, 5-3, but that was as close as Central would get in the second frame. Syracuse would score three unanswered goals to cap the scoring and produce the final margin.

“Despite the score in the second half, I thought we made some pretty good adjustments,” said Freese. “We defended the corners a lot better and started making better decisions with the ball. We still need to improve on the little things. They can be the difference between winning and losing.”

Kahla Schwall got the start between the pipes, giving up seven goals on 25 shots, making 11 saves. Melinda Curran played the first 5:10 of the second half, giving up a goal on the only shot she faced. Schwall replaced her and finished the contest.

The Chippewas head to Ann Arbor on Sunday for a neutral site match with Stanford. The match starts at 10 a.m.