FH | Freshmen Puggi, Sacré lead SU despite scoring woes

By: Zach Zagger

Posted: 9/17/07

Despite bad passes and missed opportunities to score, the Syracuse field hockey team picked up two more wins over the weekend and moved to the top of the Big East standings, with the help of two freshmen making their first starts of the season.

SU offensive struggles carried over from the previous week in which the Orange failed to score in its loss to Temple. But this weekend, freshmen Christina Puggi and Lelia Sacré helped Syracuse come away with two wins, including a win in its conference opener against Rutgers (4-3, 0-1 Big East).

The Orange (7-1, 1-0 Big East) beat Rutgers, 2-1, on Friday night and won again on Sunday, beating Hofstra also by a score of 2-1.

Puggi started in the cage for the first time this season on Friday against Rutgers, filling in for the injured junior goalkeeper, Heather Hess. Puggi also started against Hofstra, playing most of the game. Sacré, who was injured for the beginning of the season, also played in her first game this season on Friday and started against Hofstra (3-4).

"It was exciting," Sacré said, "but I was a little nervous."

Even with Sunday's win SU head coach Ange Bradley was visibly upset with her team's performance, yelling at her players to hurry off the field into the meeting room after the game.

"We need to just get better," Bradley said.

Both games this weekend were remarkably similar, as the Orange came out flat and struggled to score, while allowing the other team to keep constant pressure in the offensive zone. On Friday, SU allowed eight shots on cage and three corner opportunities to the Scarlet Knights in the first half, while only recording five shots and two corner opportunities of its own. When Syracuse forward Gloria Nantulya scored a goal with under a minute left in the first half, Rutgers answered quickly after halftime.

It was Nantulya who scored what would become the game-winning goal with less than 17 minutes remaining, assisted by freshman Maggie Befort. Rutgers continued its offensive pressure and nearly tied the game when Puggi broke up a two-on-one fast break late in the game. Puggi recorded five saves in the one-goal win.

Against the Pride, Sacré was the one who scored in the first half for the Orange and again the opponent tied up the game early in the second. Hofstra's Pemba Ramdoo dribbled the ball past an SU defender on a fast break and took a turnaround shot that snuck past the outstretched leg of Puggi to find the corner of the cage. But it was Nantulya bailing out the Orange again, scoring the game-winning goal off a penalty corner midway through the second half.

With a 1-0 loss to Temple last Sunday the Orange fell out of the STX/NFHCA coaches' poll top 20 rankings, but moved to the top of the Big East standings after beating Rutgers on Friday. SU is tied with Providence with one conference win but is tied with Connecticut for most overall wins.

Still, Syracuse's offense is struggling to gel.

One of Bradley's targets is to break the all-time Syracuse record for number of goals in one season, 58. But if the Orange continues to only score two goals a game, it will be a stretch. Syracuse is only scoring an average of 2.63 goals a game, putting it on pace to only score 47 goals by the end of the regular season.

In fact, SU has only scored more than two goals three times this season and six of its seven wins have been by one goal.

Bradley said the players are "fooling" themselves if they think they can win a Big East championship playing like they are.

"I think we need to work on consistency," Bradley said, "and establishing who we are as a team."

Regardless of its struggles, the Orange is still 7-1. Young players are beginning to step up, like Puggi and Sacré, and make significant contributions to the team. It says something about a team that plays poorly but still comes away with wins.

"It's a sign of a good team to get a result," Bradley said, "but we want to be a great team."