Twenty-three straight games on the road.

This is how the Orange began its 2013 season, traveling to exhibitions and tournaments in Charleston, S.C., Palm Springs, Calif., Orlando, Fla., and O’Ahu, Hawaii.

But on Saturday, the team will finally play in front of a Syracuse crowd.

For the second straight season, the Orange (9-14) will play its first home games in the Duel at the Dome, a weekend event in the Carrier Dome. The team will meet Harvard (5-10) on Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at noon, hoping to use its rare home-field advantage to bury early-season woes.

“The biggest difference from last year’s team to this year’s team is just on-field experience,” SU head coach Leigh Ross said. “It will be good for these girls to finally play at home. It’s your field, your dugout and your locker room, and feeling that comfortability is something this team could use.”

The Orange was in a much different situation heading into the Duel at the Dome last season. It had seven seniors, a 17-8 record and a No. 24 national ranking. This year’s team already has 14 losses, while last year’s lost 16 games the entire year.

Searching for answers in the early going, the Orange is excited to get home and play in an event that energized an already hot team a year ago. This time around, the team isn’t using its homecoming to continue its success, but to find it.

Last season, the Orange defeated Colgate 6-0 on Friday, then Canisius 6-5 on Saturday. Squaring off with a Harvard team that is also off to a slow start should give the Orange the opportunity to achieve similar results.

“The toughest part about our upcoming games is our defense, because that is something we have been struggling with,” SU first baseman Jasmine Watson said. “The hitting will come, but we just need to stay focused and we’ll be able to beat Harvard.”

As a junior captain, Watson hopes coming home will speed up the team’s maturation process. She loved the Duel at the Dome last season, and thinks playing in front of the home crowd will be especially beneficial to this year’s squad.

“When we’re on the road, only so many of our fans travel with us, and that can be hard at times,” Watson said. “Playing in front of our crowd is going to help us get comfortable and hopefully gain some confidence.”

Senior shortstop Morgan Nandin went to nearby Cicero-North Syracuse High School. As the team comes home for the Duel at the Dome, her supporters, the “Nandin fan club,” will be out in full force.

Nandin’s old teammates and coaches came to the Dome to watch the Orange play last season, and she couldn’t have been happier.

“There’s nothing better than seeing familiar faces in the crowd. It’s one of the main reasons I came to play here,” Nandin said. “Just seeing orange all around us after being away from home for so long was awesome last year, and will be just as awesome the second time around.”

But after showing her affection for the event, Nandin’s voice became stern. It’s her senior season, she’s a captain and she isn’t satisfied with the Orange’s play so far.

“We are playing in our environment and we need to turn it around,” Nandin said. “We’re just a few changes away from being right there. We just need to start making them.”

Published on March 21, 2013 at 1:07 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse