After scrimmage two weeks ago on J.S. Coyne’s Stadium field, Ange Bradley broke news that most of Syracuse’s field hockey team already knew.

Forward Lindsey Conrad had found out earlier from a text message that woke her from a mid-day nap. Kim Coyle saw it that afternoon on a Web site.

The head coach huddled her team around a candle-less vanilla cake – a premature present for sophomore midfield Lena Voelmle’s 21st birthday, that fell on the following day – and made her announcement.

Syracuse (12-0) had risen to No. 2 in the STX/NFHCA Division I National Coaches’ Poll.

‘Congratulations,’ Bradley said.

Like an uncut prelude to the news delivered from Bradley’s lips, the cake was meant to take 23 players’ minds off the field. But Bradley made it official, let her players clap to their achievement and then they ate. It’s important to have a little fun along this undefeated season.

‘It’s a little bit of a different thing,’ said Bradley, who enjoyed a slice herself. ‘We do different things, like you just got to relax.’

Take the focus off the pressure, off rankings.

A cake and a birthday along the Orange sideline are perfect remedies. Part of Bradley’s plan to stay focused requires relief at times and pressure during others. The path to an NCAA championship will require more than just hard work.

‘Sometimes you push them really tough where they almost have tears in their eyes, and they want to quit,’ Bradley said. ‘There’s other times where you bring in a cake to practice, and you relax. You’re OK.’

It was here, on the same field last year, when Bradley revealed similar news.

‘Congratulations,’ is all she remembers saying when Syracuse received its first national ranking in four years at No. 20, creating both excitement and pressure for her young team. But the accolade became a distraction.

‘We weren’t practicing very well,’ Bradley said. ‘It’s just when you do something for the first time you’re a little bit nervous, you’re focus is somewhere else.’

That intimidation is gone.

‘This team has fun together,’ Bradley said. ‘More experience that without last year’s team, we wouldn’t be able to do.’

It’s not all competition and drill and sweat. There is balance.

Bradley might take her entire team for early morning walks on a certain day to help soothe the pressure and fatigue that comes with every season; or she may serve cake after practice.

‘Everybody has their own culture,’ said Maryland head coach Missy Meharg. ‘You might have a group that really needs to think off-fall, off-sports the day of the game.’

After SU upset the No. 1 Terrapins, Meharg e-mailed Bradley on what she saw during that game – a team so focused on the moment that playing the Orange was a lesson.

‘She’s right,’ Bradley said.

Meharg, who has won four NCAA championships in her 20 years so far at Maryland, knows the importance. She has a rule on her team, that none of her players are allowed to think field hockey on off days. Instead she encourages her players to reach out, do something academic or social with family or a partner.

‘If it’s too, too hockey all the time, it’ll come back to bite you,’ Meharg said.

Rankings are volatile: a team can go up, a team can go down, but Bradley’s knows that the fun and focus on her team is constant. According to Conrad, Bradley has a new motto in locker room: ‘Energy and persistence conquers all.’

During practice last week, Syracuse divided themselves into three teams with one coach per group for rounds of scrimmages. Assistant coach Lynn Farquhar’s team was decked in blue with a ‘basketballer’ theme. Assistant coach Guy Cathro was in charge of the ‘Whiteouts.’ Bradley had the orange ‘Tigers.’

‘I don’t know where that came from,’ Bradley remarked. ‘But we will compete with each other and against each other. We had some good fights out there, and it was fun.’

Bradley knows it’s important. She huddles with the rest of her team after practice and a quick congrats on the team’s first No. 2 ranking in school history. She grabs her paper plate and plastic fork and decides to dig in without singing to Voelmle.

‘It’s bad luck to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ before your birthday,’ she laughs.

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on October 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm