Ashleigh McGowan and Leann Stiver didn’t have a choice. The graduate student and freshman had to stand there, flanking each goal post, as their teammates sprinted back and forth down J.S. Coyne Field on Tuesday.

Nearly an hour after practice was supposed to end, and roughly 20 minutes after some of their other teammates were previously excused from sprints, it was a hard lesson for the first-year goalkeepers to learn. If you slack, the rest of the team runs. Everyone else suffers for your mistake.

All they could do was remain still with their hands on their hips, panting furiously. Roughly 20 yards from them head coach Ange Bradley was hoping a message was settling in.

‘Goalies, this is what happens when you stop doing your job,’ Bradley belted as the team kept sprinting.

It is a lesson about work ethic and hunger that Bradley hopes will resonate with the first-year players and the rest of the team after their first loss of the season. That despite last year’s success, nothing this year will come easy. Everything will have to be earned. And perhaps most importantly, slow starts aren’t an option. A lack of fire at the beginning of games won’t be tolerated.

It just simply isn’t Syracuse field hockey.

Bradley hopes the message will yield in a newfound hunger for the team in time for this weekend’s games against two top-10 teams. No. 8 SU (3-1) will host No. 9 Old Dominion (2-2) Friday at 3 p.m., and No. 7 Michigan State (3-1) Sunday at 1 p.m.

‘We had good intensity (today in practice),’ Bradley said. ‘I got their attention, and they responded. They dropped from three to eighth (in the rankings), and they have lofty goals. That’s my job to help them get there.’

For now, extra hour-long practices chock full of wind sprints and emphatic constructive criticism from coaches seem to be Bradley’s recipe – her prescription for that lack of fire at the beginning of games. Players are encouraged to speak up; Bradley loves any sign of the fiery mentality the team is looking for.

Sophomore forward Nicole Nelson was one of a few players to voice their opinions during the intense elongated practice session, as she yelled words of encouragement to her teammates who were sprinting, and the two who weren’t.

Bradley relished every word.

‘Starting to get pissed! Starting to give directions!’ Bradley said in response to Nelson’s vocal outburst. ‘I like it!’

In three of its first four games the Orange has had to fight back from early deficits. Syracuse was able to weather its slow starts against Northeastern and Ohio State, but couldn’t hold on to defeat Princeton on Sunday, losing, 3-2, in overtime.

Junior back Maggie Befort, who scored twice against Princeton, feels the rise in intensity is warranted for this squad. In fact, she thinks it’s needed.

‘These sprints at the end (of practice) are just another example of us improving our team mentality,’ Befort said. ‘That’s something we had in 2008, where we were constantly going after it. We had a ferocious mentality. We were scary.

‘This year we lost a little bit of a side of that, and it’s going to take something like this to reignite something that has been engrained in our history so far.’

In 2008, junior forward Lindsey Conrad began her SU career with a hat trick in the team’s first game of the year against the same ODU team Syracuse will host Friday. Thinking back to that game, a game that catapulted the Orange to a 14-0 start and an eventual No. 1 ranking, Conrad remembers that mentality Befort was harping on. She expects to see something parallel to it soon.

‘By doing this type of stuff in practice at the end, and just being there for each other and helping each other will help us to be there for one another in the game,’ Conrad said. ‘Because of this we know that we have to come out hard and keep our tempo.’

The question now is whether the extra conditioning will instill that hunger in this year’s squad. All the way from the veteran forward Conrad at the front, to either of the new goalkeepers at the back.

The answer will be provided during the first 20 minutes of action on Friday. Befort just hopes the team can return to true Syracuse field hockey. Fun field hockey.

‘I think we have realized that coming from behind all the time isn’t fun,’ Befort said. ‘Getting the lead and putting teams away is fun hockey.’

Fun hockey – something that McGowan and Stiver are looking forward to. A long way from their roles as goal post flanks at the end of practice.

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on September 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm