After the first day of the Syracuse softball team’s trip to California, it seemed the trip couldn’t become much worse. Unfortunately for the Orange, it did.

For the second year in a row the Orange visited the West Coast and came back with seven losses. Syracuse returned disappointed this year after a 3-7 road trip marred by inconsistency.

SU will enter Big East conference play this weekend with an 11-13 record.

The road trip started off to an inauspicious beginning at the Long Beach State Invitational. On the first day the Orange lost twice in the final inning, including a 2-1 defeat at the hands of No. 24 Mississippi State.

‘To start off that way, it’s hard to get momentum,’ sophomore pitcher Erin Downey said. ‘I think actually losing those two games was probably a bigger part of the reason why we really didn’t come out as strong as we wanted to.’

One season removed from upsetting national powerhouse No. 3 UCLA in its first game of the season, SU dropped a 3-0 decision to the Bruins, this time ranked No. 4. It was just one of many tough losses the Orange suffered.

‘We definitely beat ourselves in every game except for the UCLA game,’ senior shortstop/pitcher Alexis Switenko said. ‘Those other losses are hard to take because every one of those games we could have won.’

From a close contest against a top five team to an 11-inning loss, a five-inning, 13-run mercy-rule defeat and two walk-off losses in one day, SU covered it all.

Then, after all of the damaging losses, the Orange put together two wins against Big 10 opponents Minnesota and Iowa.

The California trip was just another chapter in the persistent theme of inconsistency that has riddled SU’s inexperienced squad.

‘The inconsistency has to stop at some point,’ SU head coach Mary Jo Firnbach said. ‘You can only use being young as an excuse for so long.’

Downey suffered both of the losses on the first day of competition. She finished the 10-game stretch with a 3-6 record and a 3.72 ERA.

In the UCLA loss, Downey pitched a complete game and gave up seven hits and three runs while striking out five. That defeat was especially disappointing for Downey because she wanted to prove last year’s win wasn’t a fluke.

‘I just wanted to keep our title,’ Downey said. ‘But they’re a good team and they make the plays they need to.’

In 10 games, Downey struck out 53 batters in 48.1 innings, but walked 20. She started every game but two.

Perhaps the toughest defeat to swallow was an 11-inning loss against Sacramento State, the host of the Capital Classic.

The Hornets’ Nikki Cinque hit a two-run, walk-off home run off of Downey, which tied for the second-longest game in Syracuse softball history.

In each extra inning, the Orange advanced a runner to third base, but failed to score all four times.

‘That game should have been over in seven innings and we should have won,’ said Switenko. ‘We were killing ourselves defensively and offensively.’

In the ninth, SU had runners on first and third with no one out and did not score. Then in the 11th, a Switenko single gave freshman Dani Stuart a chance to score, but she was thrown out at home to preserve the tie. The Orange stranded a total of 11 runners.

The 15-2 loss at the hands of Long Beach State was the largest margin of defeat in the program’s seven-year history.

Published on March 21, 2006 at 12:00 pm