Despite hot start, toughest part of schedule awaits Orange
Syracuse was riding high after a win against Georgetown on Oct.18. The Orange had just defeated the Hoyas to win its seventh game in a row to improve to 7-1 in Big East play – its best start since the 2004 campaign.
But after the victory, Syracuse knew that the schedule wasn’t going to get any easier. As the SU players walked off the court after their win, they knew that they wouldn’t play at Manley Field House again for another 19 days.
Syracuse (18-7, 7-2 Big East) began its longest road trip of the Big East schedule on Saturday by falling to Marquette (15-9, 4-5), on Saturday, and then to Wisconsin-Green Bay on Sunday. The road trip hasn’t started as the Orange would have liked, and it will only get more difficult from here.
Despite SU’s excellent record, the team has come under some scrutiny for playing a relatively light schedule. Assistant coach Carol LaMarche hears criticisms like these all the time, but doesn’t necessarily agree with it.
‘We’re feeling good, but we know everyone is betting against us,’ LaMarche said. ‘All of the volleyball talk on the Internet is betting against us. They all know that we still have Louisville, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame coming up, which is true.
‘We know that we haven’t played those teams and some teams have played them, but I think people are underestimating us.’
Syracuse will find out just how good it is this upcoming weekend when it takes on those Big East powers. SU travels to Louisville, and then to Cincinnati, in what could be a defining point in its season. Though Syracuse dropped the first two games of the road trip, the team feels relaxed and still remembers to have fun on the court, regardless of which state it is in.
Freshman setter Laura Homann believes that Syracuse’s fun-loving style is essential in zoning out the opposing crowd and just focusing on volleyball.
‘When we’re in the other school’s gym, we’re playing hide-and-go-seek, and nobody has any idea what we’re doing,’ Homann joked. ‘But we’re relaxed on the road. It definitely translates over.’
Though the freshmen and sophomores feel comfortable 25 games into the season, senior middle blocker and co-captain Sarah Morton admitted that her role as a leader is heightened when the team faces major challenges, like the ones that lie ahead.
Morton and her veteran teammates know that it is their job to help the team keep its composure at all times, regardless of the surroundings and unruly crowds.
‘I’m sure the underclassmen will look to us upperclassman to see how we handle different situations,’ Morton said. ‘Against Cincinnati, they usually have a good crowd, so it will be interesting to see how we can react in that kind of atmosphere. These next games are going to be hard; they’re going to be point for point. We just need to play.’
There is certainly no love is lost between Syracuse and its two upcoming foes. SU’s current group of seniors has not defeated either Louisville or Cincinnati in their four years on campus. Louisville, the 2009 Big East favorite, knocked the Orange out of the Big East tournament each of the last two years.
Syracuse nearly ended its losing streak against Cincinnati last season in Manley Field House, but fell short in a grueling finish. With the match tied at two, Syracuse let a 14-9 lead slip away and eventually fell, 16-14, to lose the match.
As Syracuse gets ready to play the final two Big East road games of the season this weekend, SU will have a chance to prove itself as a Big East power and show that it can compete with the conference elite. However, the Orange knows that the only way it can beat the upper echelon Big East teams is if it is clicking on all cylinders from start to finish.
‘So far we’ve beaten who we should have beaten, and I don’t still think we’ve played our best,’ LaMarche said. ‘Nobody has had their best day at the same time yet. Hopefully going into the second half of the Big East schedule we can start to peak together.’
