North Carolina’s Ela Hazar turned a corner and saw two Syracuse defenders closing in on her. She peered over the defenders’ heads and saw Maggie Bill open in front of the crease. Bill caught Hazar’s pass, turned and shot, beating Asa Goldstock. Ella Simkins, the closest defender, slid late.

Two minutes later, Bill held the ball at the point with Kerry Defliese fixed in front of her, the rest of the Orange defense fanned out around them. Bill faked right, dashed left and burst through SU’s interior. Lila Nazarian slid over, but she, too, was late.

Both plays, just 32 seconds into the game, spawned from a familiar lapse in communication between the SU backline.

“I think we really psyched ourselves out,” Defliese said a couple days removed from the 20-11 blowout loss on April 14. “I think maybe after the first two goals, we thought to ourselves, ‘Crap, this is UNC.’ … We start to be quiet and things start to shut down.”

Head coach Gary Gait has said multiple times this season that his team’s success was predicated on chemistry and communication. The lack of the latter has been the root of SU’s (9-9, 1-6 Atlantic Coast) defensive inconsistency. A backline that’s featured three new starters — Mia DiBello, Defliese and Simkins — has relied primarily on a “man-to-man” scheme, SU players and coaches said, a year removed from Syracuse’s earliest NCAA tournament exit in over a decade. The consensus from coaches and players is that Syracuse’s new tactic has fared well. Yet, it’s had moments where its inexperience has been apparent.

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MORE COVERAGE:

• Syracuse women’s lacrosse opponent preview: What to know about Princeton
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The Orange’s defensive unit ranks 91st in the country, allowing 13.89 goals a game. To secure the NCAA tournament win that eluded it in 2017, SU will need to lock up Princeton’s (12-5, 6-1 Ivy League) 18th best attack (15.06 scores per contest) on Friday in Newton, Massachusetts. The matchup comes two weeks after Syracuse’s most recent game, playing UNC a second time in the ACC tournament and allowing 21 goals, SU’s worst defensive performance since its inaugural season.

“(Man-to-man) is a lot of fun to play,” sophomore Lila Nazarian said. “It comes down to hard work … It ended up being a good fit for the athletes we have.”

SU assistant coach Caitlin Defliese orchestrates the defense along with associate head coach Regy Thorpe. Caitlin, Kerry Defliese’s older sister, said that SU switched to a man-to-man scheme to better prepare itself for certain offenses. While the Orange anticipated a “mix” of matchup and zone strategies in the beginning of the year, players have said that SU has often utilized the man-to-man.

Thorpe and Defliese assign each defender an attack for the game. It’s regarded as the “best-case scenario,” Nazarian said. If Syracuse finds itself on the wrong end of a breakaway, each defender won’t rotate to their designated player. The Orange benefits from film study to label every attack as a dodger, feeder or both. Defliese labeled the past week’s practices as “intense,” with SU using seven versus seven drills to replicate game scenarios.

SU’s gameplan for Friday is centered around limiting Kyla Sears, the Tigers’ point-leader. A freshman, she’s tallied 78 points — 60 goals and 18 assists — which ranks 27th in the nation. Defliese said the Orange will designate one defender to limit Princeton’s biggest threat.

“If we’re talking out there and we know what everyone is doing on the field,” junior defender and lone-returning starter Alexa Radziewicz said, “I think that’s when we click the best. We have moments when we do that.”

Radziewicz said those “moments” materialize when the backline constantly communicates. She highlighted the Orange’s 17-15 upset of then-No.4 Florida on Mar. 7 as a standout game for the defense. SU scooped 15 ground balls, forced seven turnovers and held off a Gator comeback. Four days later against Maryland, however, Syracuse allowed 18 goals in a seven-goal blowout.

“We’ve seen enough of our film to make adjustments on the ‘D-end,’” Gait said. “… That’s what we’ve spent this week working on.”

SU has gone back to the “basics” throughout its last week of practice, alerting one another of ground balls and calling out who to box out after a shot attempt to get back to the level it exhibited in early March. For a defense replacing 75 percent of its regulars, the reps are inching the unit closer to the chemistry it has lacked at crucial moments.

“We got to come together as a team,” Gait said. “We’re on a mission and have a goal. Last year, we got a little caught off guard. … This year, we’re dialed in. They’re ready to play.”

Published on May 11, 2018 at 7:35 am

Contact Nick: nialvare@syr.edu | @nick_a_alvarez