WLAX : SU begins Big East play at Rutgers with sense of urgency
Michelle Tumolo watched the losses pile up for the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team. At 2-5 after a loss at No. 2 Northwestern on Wednesday, SU’s fifth-ranked program at the start of the season has struggled in each of its losses.
And now for the SU attack Tumolo, the sense of urgency is starting to kick in. With Big East play about to start, Tumolo thinks the Orange’s season is on the line in its upcoming game at Rutgers.
‘It’s basically our season,’ Tumolo said. ‘If we want to keep going in the playoffs, we need to start winning these games.’
It may seem like that for Tumolo, but schedule-wise, it’s just the start of conference play. Most of the Orange’s nonconference schedule is complete. It has a chance to learn from past games and create a better record at the start of the Big East season. And that’s what Tumolo and Syracuse plan to do.
‘The Big East games are the biggest,’ Tumolo said. ‘Because we want to win the Big East, and that will help us make it to the (NCAA) tournament.’
Those games start Saturday when SU opens up Big East play at Rutgers at 1 p.m. The game, SU’s fifth straight on the road, is a huge one. With the team under .500, every game becomes even more important.
Big East play is what matters most. The team still has two nonconference games left, but the Big East schedule is where the focus is right now, as six of SU’s next seven games come within conference. The schedule begins against a 6-2 Rutgers team, albeit one that hasn’t faced a schedule nearly as daunting as SU’s. The Scarlet Knights have only played two ranked teams, while Syracuse has played five.
But Tumolo still sees the Scarlet Knights as a scrappy team that could give SU a hard time with their athletic ability.
‘They might not be getting all these goals, but if they’re getting the ball, they’re going to have the ball in their stick and we’re not,’ Tumolo said. ‘You can’t take anyone lightly, because we’re not on the winning category, so we have to keep every game as a hard-fought battle.’
Battling is what Syracuse has done most of this season. Aside from a blowout loss to Virginia on Feb. 27, SU kept the score close in every game.
Attack Tee Ladouceur knows the Orange can perform better. For Ladouceur, it’s only a matter of time before everything comes together. And she’s ready to let the Big East know that Syracuse is still strong.
‘We really want to show the Big East that we are here and we’re ready to win games and we’re contenders this year,’ Ladouceur said.
But Ladouceur still acknowledges the mixed results that have come with SU’s start to the season. With such a young team, she said, mistakes are bound to happen in the early going.
‘We see moments of brilliance, and we see moments of a young team,’ Ladouceur said.
SU hopes to see moments of brilliance this Saturday. Both Tumolo and Syracuse head coach Gary Gait said the game against Rutgers is ‘huge.’
The Big East has an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, so it’s important the Orange start off on the right track in conference play — especially after rocky results in the nonconference portion of its season.
‘We’ve had some tough games in the nonconference schedule, and we haven’t come out with the wins,’ Gait said. ‘So it’s imperative to have success in the Big East.’
And Tumolo knows the team has the ability. Its game against Maryland on March 12, one Syracuse lost by two goals, gave the team a confidence booster because each member of the team played well. But it still ended with a loss.
Now SU has to start turning those performances into wins. That starts with putting the nonconference record behind it and moving onto the games that will determine whether or not the team plays in the NCAA tournament.
‘We would like to obviously win our nonconference games,’ Ladouceur said. ‘But when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is Big East play.’
