Unlike many Orange supporters, Ange Bradley wasn’t watching Greg Paulus and the Syracuse football team at the Carrier Dome Saturday. No, the head coach of SU Field Hockey was carefully analyzing and deciphering a Princeton team that was facing the Ohio State Buckeyes at J.S. Coyne Field. Bradley meticulously looked for any advantage for SU’s game the next day against the rival Tigers.

What Bradley discovered enabled the Orange to stay in the game Sunday. Bradley’s analysis -during penalty corners, Princeton’s defense left a substantial hole mere feet from the right post – would provide an opening for a player to have a golden opportunity to score.

One day later, thanks to Bradley’s scouting and SU’s practice of the play, the team stuck with the Tigers due to two identical goals in that exact same spot from Maggie Befort. Befort was called upon twice to be the player occupying the gap the Tiger defense failed to defend.

‘We saw it yesterday watching them play,’ Bradley said. ‘And we built a play around it to be able to exploit a weakness. In a corner you’re in a 7-on-4 situation, you have to find a way to convert.’

The play was successful twice, just as Bradley had envisioned it. Befort connected at the 47:45 minute mark in the second half to tie the game at one. Less than seven minutes later, the junior took a shot from the same spot in the same situation again. This time forcing an own goal to give Syracuse it’s only lead of the game at 2-1. SU went on to lose in overtime 3-2.

‘(The goals) were really important,’ Befort said after scoring her first two goals on the year. ‘I knew that in that part of the game we needed to put points on the board.’

The well-executed play was the first breakthrough of the day for Syracuse. It was an emotional one for the squad, as the rest of SU swarmed the ecstatic Befort after the goal.

Befort’s second goal of the afternoon lifted the Orange again, and they proceeded to outplay the Tigers for the rest of the game. In the end though, they couldn’t finish any opportunities.

‘(The emotion) was great because we were coming from behind,’ freshman back Amy Kee said. ‘We have practiced that set play and did it to accommodate the Princeton defense because we knew that that area was open, so we practiced that set play and it came up twice.’

Along with Befort, Kee was an integral part in the precise play. The back is called upon to set up the play, almost like a point guard in basketball. In Bradley’s mind it wasn’t too crucial a role for the first-year player.

Kee came through each time in the situation. She even had a say in whether or not the Orange would go with that specific penalty corner play. Those dreaded freshman jitters were non-existent.

‘We have a few different plays that are called in from the sideline for penalty corners and, yeah, they kind of gave me the decision,’ Kee said. ‘We were like ‘are we going to do it again?’ and I was like, ‘if it’s open why not?’ And it worked.’

Following Befort’s second goal, the Princeton defense switched to account for the opening next to the right post. SU then went away from the set play on subsequent penalty corners, instead resorting to strikes from the top of the circle.

Junior Lindsey Conrad and a few others had several opportunities in these situations the rest of regulation and into the overtime session, yet the Orange failed to convert.

A sign Conrad thinks shows that the Orange still have to improve in penalty corner situations.

‘We’ve been working on our corners a lot in practice, and we put Maggie’s in for this game,’ Conrad said. ‘Hopefully we can improve them and see what we can do.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on September 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm