Having clinched a bye to the quarterfinals in the Big East tournament, what happens Saturday when Syracuse plays St. John’s is almost meaningless for the Orange.

But it would be a mistake to say the game doesn’t matter.

“Some people may say it doesn’t matter quite as much as all the other games, but if anything I think it matters more,” Alyscha Mottershead said.

As a senior, the game against St. John’s (6-9-1, 2-6-1 Big East) will be the last time Mottershead will play in front of a home crowd for the Orange (8-6-2, 5-3-1). It is also the team’s final chance to build momentum before the postseason begins.

Last year, the Orange lost to Marquette and St. John’s to finish the regular season before falling to Georgetown in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament.

The Orange lost to Marquette last weekend, and Mottershead knows the team cannot afford to finish the season like it did last year if it wants to have a successful postseason.

“We had a losing streak at the end of the year and as a result, moving into the playoffs we didn’t have a good game, and I think going in there after a win against St. John’s will be huge for us,” she said.

Brittany Anghel said the game is a stepping stone for the Orange. Knowing how St. John’s has struggled this season, the junior goalkeeper is looking for a big win to build momentum heading into the team’s game against Notre Dame.

“This is our opportunity to just pummel them, score as many as possible. It’s also senior day, so we want to honor them by doing as well as we can,” she said.

An Orange victory seemed much more likely before last weekend, when the team had won four in a row.

But the team suffered two frustrating losses against USF and Marquette, and will need to learn from those games to successfully move forward.

Mottershead did not make any excuses for the losses, but did say the trip to Florida and then to Wisconsin made it a very difficult weekend for the team.

“We have to work on our preparation going into big games like that and starting off stronger,” she said. “At the end of the game we definitely showed we could outplay them.”

Head coach Phil Wheddon said the brutal weather conditions made the Marquette game “a little bit of an anomaly.” But both games exposed the team’s struggles to finish.

“It took us a little while to get into the game on Friday night against Florida. We outshot them 18-6, and they win one-nil, so that exposed our lack of ability to be clinical in front of goal,” he said.

Anghel also said that the team’s lack of composure in front of the goal was the main issue, but the defense will have to work even harder in the coming games.

“Defensively we had a couple of breakdowns here and there, but the conditions were really tough, so hopefully moving forward, actually, at Notre Dame they are going to be tough. So I guess it’s just something we have to adapt to,” she said.

The Orange is headed to consecutive Big East tournaments for the first time in more than a decade.

But Mottershead said that cannot be enough to satisfy the team if the ultimate goal is championships.

“I think that this was kind of a standard that we knew we had to meet,” she said. “It’s great that we’re there but we’re looking to accomplish a lot more than we did last year.”

Published on October 18, 2012 at 1:27 am

Contact Jack: jstruitt@syr.edu