Monday night in the Carrier Dome was supposed to be a special night for No. 5 Syracuse women's lacrosse. The No. 1 team in the country, Northwestern, was in town going up against possibly the strongest team Syracuse has put on the field in its 11-year history.
The night - with so much anticipation - ended in disappointment for the Orange and the record crowd inside the Dome as SU (7-2) lost 19-7. Northwestern was able to score 10 straight goals in the second half after the game had been tied at five.
The Orange will look to get back on the winning track this Sunday as it heads on the road to Cincinnati (1-6). The Bearcats will be a stark contrast to the supremely talented Wildcats. Cincinnati is a first-year program and will join the Orange in the Big East conference next season.
Syracuse head coach Gary Gait sees this upcoming game as a chance for his team to regain some confidence after the loss to Northwestern.
"We can use this game to work on things," Gait said. "If we are giving up four or five goals against a comparable team, then we want to drop that to two or three. We want to continue to improve and find challenges within those games and simulate a tougher opponent."
One area the Orange hopes to improve greatly on is the production of leading scorer Katie Rowan, who was held scoreless on Monday night. Rowan was double-teamed all game long, and SU had to look for other options on the offensive end.
Before Thursday's practice, Syracuse was able to sit down and go over what exactly went wrong in the loss on Monday. Rowan said the attack as a whole was looking for new ways to find scoring opportunities when the defense is applying the pressure like Northwestern.
"As an attack we are going to keep working on different ways to get open when they are face-guarding people," the junior Rowan said. "We have to work on setting picks for each other, v-cuts, all those things."
Senior attack Kristin Brady continued working on the Carrier Dome field long after practice ended Thursday, as she shot into an empty net for 20 minutes after the rest of her teammates had left the field. She said she had to take advantage of every last opportunity she had in the Dome in her final season.
Brady also knows her team needs to become mentally tougher, especially after the Northwestern loss when it had numerous mental mistakes.
"We had lots of mental lapses and you can't have those," Brady said. "You can't have those, but it'll come."
Monday night's game was a chance for the Orange to show it belonged among the elite teams in the country, but it was not able to take advantage of that opportunity. At nearly the halfway point of the season, Syracuse still has a home contest against No. 8 Georgetown on the horizon in the regular season.
Brady said the season will continue to build even after the setback suffered at the hands of the Wildcats.
Some of the Syracuse players downplayed the importance of their 12-goal loss on Monday night, however, Gait saw the defeat as a sign that his team had not reached the level they hope to get to this season.
"Taking it on the chin against Northwestern gave us a chance to look back and see what we can improve on to try to get to that elite level," Gait said. "We want to be the top two or three teams in the country, and obviously we have a long way to go."
jssutton@syr.edu
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