Seconds after the feed from the NCAA tournament selection show was cut, Ange Bradley’s iPhone – encased in orange – rang.

As the Syracuse field hockey head coach peered down and read the text message from former SU All-American Shannon Taylor, she realized exactly the situation her team is now in.

Back in Argentina with USA Field Hockey, Taylor came to the same conclusion — the No. 8 field hockey team had reached the NCAA tournament with the chance to avenge both its regular season loses in the tournament’s first two rounds.

It’s a scene neither Bradley nor Taylor experienced prior to this year. Saturday the Orange (17-3) will try to remove the blemish of its worst loss of the season against No. 10 Boston College (13-6). With a victory over BC and a win from No. 4 Princeton (14-2) against No. 14 Stanford (16-4), SU can remove the taste from its only home loss on the year. One which came at the hands of the Tigers in overtime by the score of 3-2.

‘(Taylor) just said ‘beat BC’,’ Bradley said of the text message she received. ‘It is just kind of funny for us to go to Princeton and play Boston College ? a team that we lost to just two weeks ago. You just couldn’t ask for a better situation.’

Syracuse effectively lost its opportunity to host the first and second rounds with two losses late in the season. The two: A 1-0 loss at BC just two weeks ago and a 2-1 loss in the Big East championship game Sunday to conference rival No. 5 Connecticut (19-2).

Bradley and the rest of the team, including junior back Maggie Befort, would love to play at home this weekend just like last year. But the Orange is more than happy with the way things turned out, specifically when it comes to the Eagles.

‘It is exactly what it is. It’s redemption,’ Befort, the programs all-time leading scorer (101), said. ‘To get a chance to avenge one of our losses, it really was a bad loss. We were our own worst enemy, in the way of our own success. So it will be really exciting to play them in the first round in order to erase and doubt and shed any anxiety from the season.’

Lena Voelmle agrees with Befort on the fact that both losses were the most frustrating points of the season.

Unlike Befort though, the first thing that came to her mind when she saw the draw was Princeton, not Boston College. The parallels to last year’s NCAA tournament are too similar.

If the Orange gets past BC and the Tigers defeat Stanford, the two teams will face off for a final four berth for the second consecutive year. Last year, the Orange beat Princeton 3-2 in overtime to qualify for the programs first final four. That, however, was on Syracuse’s home turf at J.S. Coyne Field.

This weekend Princeton will be hosting and Bradley is well aware of the effects of that variable.

We can’t doubt ourselves,’ Bradley said. ‘We have one opportunity against BC…it is all about what is going on right now, before us. No matter where we are.’

If by the time Sunday rolls around and déj vu of last year’s classic overtime victory occurs, it’ll be a pleasant surprise to some around the program. For Bradley and the rest of her coaching staff though, it’s a situation that they have been seriously contemplating since the UConn loss.

That’s because Bradley was afforded the opportunity to peer into the Orange’s crystal ball, thanks to assistant coach Guy Cathro. Cathro is a financial analyst (actuary) by trade back home in Scotland, and his experience dealing with risk and uncertainty benefited SU heading into the selection process.

On Tuesday, rather than dealing with financials and mathematics, Cathro was juggling RPI rankings and strength-of-schedule. His educated prediction was a trip to Princeton.

The pairing with BC came as a pleasant surprise to even Cathro, though. And with the weekend fast approaching, Voelmle is thinking of the Eagles.

Much like Taylor was in another hemisphere.

Said Voelmle: ‘We definitely want revenge; we have got to go after it.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on November 11, 2009 at 12:00 pm