Down 19-16 to Duke on Nov. 9, it looked like Syracuse still had a chance to come back and win the first set. But six straight points for the Blue Devils, punctuated by an ace from Emily Sklar, ended it.

The Orange didn’t huddle like it does after almost every point. Instead, SU setter Gosia Wlaszczuk stared at the ground and stormed to the other side of the court, ahead of her teammates. Libero Belle Sand clenched her fists in disappointment and followed.

“When it looks like sometimes we are slow, we have to realize it’s a reason because the other team does something that make it looks like (we are),” head coach Leonid Yelin said.

In a season of many struggles for Syracuse, starting slow has been one of them. The Orange has only won the first set four times in 13 conference games — and three of those instances came against teams in the lower tier of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

In the other nine ACC games, SU has been outscored by almost 10 points per first set — compared to 1.2 points in the second sets. Syracuse (8-17, 1-12 ACC) will be looking to avoid another unsuccessful beginning when it hosts Boston College (10-13, 5-7) at 1 p.m. in the Women’s Building on Sunday.

“I think having a slow start is usually an individual thing,” middle blocker Lindsay McCabe said. “People have to be ready to play and mentally prepare to start the match and maybe we haven’t been doing a good enough job of that.”

In the past four games, the Orange’s hitting percentage in the first set is a mere 6 percent, compared to 14 percent in the rest of the sets. Often, SU will rebound from a double-digit point deficit in the first set, but loses by only a few points in the second and third.

Sometimes it’s a matter of adjusting to the other team, Yelin said, but other times it’s a matter of adjusting to one another on the court. McCabe said it doesn’t have as much to do with the other team as it does with the Orange.

“One thing that’s great about volleyball is the next set starts at 0-0,” McCabe said. “Coach always says, ‘It’s not like basketball where after the half if you’re down 30 you’re still down 30 when you come out.’ I think that the best thing we can have, and we do, is short memory so when you come out for that the second set it’s a brand-new game and a brand-new chance to win.”

McCabe said that once she and her teammates settle into the game and get comfortable on the court, they usually mesh together. But because of injuries, the Orange has had to play with multiple different lineups and a few players have changed positions.

McCabe said the team has been good at making mid-game adjustments this year, but Yelin said sometimes that’s not enough. Regardless, the players don’t get discouraged knowing that they’ll have to win at least three out of the next four sets to win the game, McCabe said.

Against Louisville on Oct. 31, Syracuse lost the first set, 25-12, and dropped the first five points of the second. But the Orange came back to win the second, 25-22.

With SU only capturing one ACC victory this season and battling to win even one set each game, the slow starts haven’t helped.

“(I’m) unsatisfied,” Wlaszczuk said. “I feel like we have a good team and we are supposed to be higher in the standings of the ACC. It’s just that we can’t overcome ourselves and it’s mental.”

Published on November 13, 2014 at 12:02 am

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus