Syracuse’s struggles on the draw arose long before Morgan Widner hit the Carrier Dome turf with an injury on Feb. 22. After Syracuse’s opening day win versus Connecticut, SU head coach Gary Gait sat confidently on the podium.

A team that had just lost its fall season had expected mistakes, and Gait brushed off any notion that he was worried about the games outcome.

With his team at full strength and a slow start the only question mark in what turned out to be a blowout win, Gait addressed the problem that kept the Orange from providing the knockout blow earlier than it had.

“It all starts with the draw,” Gait said.

For No. 18 Syracuse (7-5, 0-3 Atlantic Coast), that’s where it’s always started. The draw has become a constant talking point after games, as every result has hinged on Syracuse’s ability to gain possession in draw situations. Morgan Widner’s injury gave way for Julie Cross to jump into a new role as Syracuse’s top draw-control specialist, but more than a month after the injury and coming off losses in three of its last four games, Syracuse is still “scrambling,” Gait said.

“It just is disappointing,” Gait said. “I thought that we were super deep.”

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Last season, Syracuse was one of the best draw control teams in the nation. It ranked 33rd in the country and was carried by the play of then-freshman Morgan Widner, whose 7.09 draws per game ranked seventh in the nation. The stats have shown those possessions have counted. Since the start of the 2017 season, Syracuse has only lost two games — March 14, 2017 against Florida and March 28, 2017 against Princeton — where it won the draw controls battle.

Early in the season, Gait said that new rules implemented this year will make the draw split “50-50” and no one will “dominate.” Thus far for Syracuse, that hasn’t been the case. The Orange is getting outpaced in the draw 212-155, including 53-33 across its three conference games, all losses.

Before the injury to Widner, Gait comfortably addressed his team’s draw issue by defending its depth. When Widner wasn’t playing well, he was confident in the Orange’s ability to insert Cross to win the battles that Widner couldn’t because she relied more on “finesse” to win draws. But after the injury, Syracuse has tried numerous combinations of players. This season, 16 players — either the draw taker or the wings — have recorded a draw control. Four players have won 14 or more.

Last season, Widner carried the Orange’s draw. In 2018, without Widner taking a majority of the draws, the Orange have relied on Julie Cross (36 controls), Neena Merola (33) and Kerry Defliese (29) to carry its mediocre draw control attack.

“I think we’re just trying to figure some things out, just throwing people in,” Defliese said after Syracuse’s loss to Maryland on March 11, in which SU was dominated on the draw 22-8. “(We’re) working together and finding a good option.”

For a few consecutive games, despite not having any experience, she said, Defliese was SU’s top option on the draw. From SU’s March 4 matchup with Virginia (a game after Defliese won her first draw) through its March 26 matchup with Northwestern, Defliese either led or tied for the lead in draws. But as Syracuse continued to struggle, the Orange turned to Merola on the wing and Emily Hawryschuk at the faceoff X to fill the void.

The switch was another example of how unpredictable the Orange’s draw control lineup has been this year. After the loss to Maryland, Defliese weighed in on her future leading the draw.

“We’re still working on it,” she said.

Gait said he tried out Hawryschuk because she has “quick hands.” Though she said that she hasn’t taken a draw since high school, the Orange entrusted Hawryschuk to lead the team on the draw against Duke’s then-No. 2 draw control group. The Orange has switched around the draw team all year, but Hawryschuk said after the Duke loss “you just got to adjust.”

“We can’t keep doing the same things over and over again, be getting the same results and expect it to just switch one day,” Gait said.

This year, Syracuse has tried to do things differently, and the results have always remained the same.

Published on April 2, 2018 at 9:53 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary