The situation this year was much different for Stefanie Marty.The past few years, Syracuse’s sophomore forward suited up for a club team in Switzerland, the Swiss Olympic team and New Hampshire. All three were established teams that set concrete expectations.

Syracuse captain Marty thought she would see the same attitude with the Orange. But as she started practicing at Tennity Ice Pavilion with her newfound teammates, there was one glaring difference.

‘We didn’t have any concrete expectations or goals,’ Marty said. ‘It was unique, we were more like, let’s go out there, play, and just stay competitive.’

Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan, who saw his share of winners at St. Lawrence before coming to SU this year, agreed with Marty. But in its first season, Syracuse just wanted to hang with teams.

‘Our goals at the start of the year were pretty simple: to be as competitive as possible, and I thought we did that well game after game,’ said Flanagan, who entered the season with the sixth-most wins among active Division I coaches. ‘I guess you could say that it was one of the main themes from the first half of the year.’

After finishing half of the season, the Orange (4-11) believes its first 15 games have been a relative success. The Syracuse players have taken pride in staying in the game regardless the opponent, with only a few exceptions.

Ironically, the two games that perhaps best exemplified the team’s competitiveness so far were losses – the first at Wisconsin, and the second at the Onondaga County War Memorial against College Hockey America conference power Mercyhurst.

In the team’s second game of the season Oct. 3 against Wisconsin, the Orange went into the third period against the No. 2 Badgers down a single goal. Syracuse lost 3-0, but stayed in the game thanks to 41 saves from junior goalie Lucy Schoedel.

A month later, the team played its first game downtown at the War Memorial. Syracuse shocked Mercyhurst minutes into the game, thanks to a goal from freshman forward Megan Skelly, the team leader in goals and points at the halfway point with six and 11, respectively. The Lakers still stormed back for a 4-1 win.

In both games, the Orange showed it can play with two established programs. But in both cases, Syracuse suffered lopsided losses in the second leg of each series.

‘Those two games were downers,’ Flanagan said. ‘The Mercyhurst game showed us where we have to go, to play back-to-back games with less than 24 hours time in between was difficult for us, they were just so much stronger, it was tough.’

Despite staying competitive through its first six games, the novelty of the ‘Original Orange’ slightly wore off, Flanagan said. As a result, the team stepped up and put its most complete performance together against Quinnipiac on Oct. 18, earning the program’s first win, 2-0.

‘At the beginning of the year, we talked about the fact that you can’t give a team an identity but you have to develop that,’ Flanagan said. ‘We had a good team meeting that weekend after the first loss and a video session the next morning, and the girls really responded. It was the only game where the girls played a full 60 minutes.’

Heading into the last 15 games, Syracuse now has formed some goals. The Orange wants to make a dent in the College Hockey America conference. But Syracuse is 0-6 in conference play so far.

‘Our hopes are really high, we have a lot of conference games left, we want to come back into 2009 and get ready to win some games,’ senior defenseman Nicolette Leone said.

But before the team can try to achieve those goals, it will have to deal with winter break. After a pair of games at Mercyhurst this weekend, Syracuse will have a 34-day layoff.

‘The season is so long, the longest season of any Division I sport, so the time off will be a nice mental break for the girls,’ Flanagan said. ‘They’ll train, and we are going to be doing a lot of recruiting. But when we get back together we are going to try and establish ourselves as a team to be reckoned with.

‘It will be a little different in second semester because we aren’t an unknown entity anymore.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on December 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm