Syracuse looked like two different teams in its two matches this weekend.

Friday night against Pittsburgh (15-14, 7-9 Atlantic Coast), the Orange came out flat, not energized and lacked confidence. Sunday was a different story.

SU came out with fire and an obvious desire to prove Friday was a fluke.

“On Friday we really underestimated Pitt because we had already beat them,” outside hitter Nicolette Serratore said. “So we came in knowing, ‘Yeah we have beat Maryland but they can definitely come back.’ We were just a lot more focused and ready to compete.”

After dropping Friday’s match in straight sets to Pitt, Syracuse (14-14, 9-7) responded by coming out on Sunday to win in four emotional sets against Maryland (13-15, 5-11).

Struggling for the now vanishing NCAA tournament hopes, Syracuse came out flat on Friday. Having previously beaten the Panthers, it could be said that the Orange may have underestimated them.

“We didn’t start playing from the first game to the end,” head coach Leonid Yelin said.

The game seemed to be a product of SU’s mental mistakes. From the first set all the way through the third set, self-inflicted wounds kept affecting the Orange.

“Those mistakes we had in the first,” Yelin said, “but in the third (set) people were completely checked out.”

Syracuse knew that it would have to bounce back if it wanted to keep hopes of an NCAA tournament berth alive.

It was back to the drawing board for Syracuse and Yelin.

With a practice on Saturday, the Orange would have to figure something out if it wanted to win. It would allow all the players to refocus and come out better on Sunday, freshman setter Erica Handley said.

“(Saturday’s) practice was pretty good,” Handley said. “We got a lot of the stuff done that we needed to get done and we were focused in preparing for today’s game so that we didn’t lose.”

A lack of energy seemed to plague Syracuse in the first game. The players knew that they would have to display more energy in Sunday’s game to come out and win a game.

Each player prepares for games differently, whether it is listening to the same playlist before games or drawing weird things on the board in the locker room, sophomore Silvi Uattara said.

Serratore watched hours and hours of film. She watched the game from Friday, Maryland’s latest game and the game that SU beat the Terrapins in earlier in the season.

“So it was a lot of video,” Serratore said, “but on game day I listen to the same playlist. I just do the same thing every morning to get into that groove.”

On Sunday, the true test came after the Orange dropped the emotional third set on Uattara’s missed kill. In between the sets, Yelin told the team to forget the last set and refocus.

“We knew the third set was a lot of our own mistakes,” Serratore said. “And that we just had to change a couple of things like unforced errors and stuff like that. We stuck to the plan and it came together.”

Uattara said that they really did not change anything either. She felt that they were all playing very well. It just slipped their grasp.

“They wanted to win also,” Uattara said. “It’s not that we lost (the third set), it was that they won it.”

Published on November 18, 2013 at 2:07 am

Contact Eric: esriter@syr.edu