Ashley Williams sat on the bench, wearing her warm-up gear and keeping score. Looking like she wanted nothing more than to be out on the court. But Syracuse’s leader on defense wouldn’t see any action Wednesday.

And it was up to the rest of the team to try and adjust to not having her.

‘It’s difficult when you’re playing different positions and adjusting,’ outside hitter Hayley Todd said. ‘In practice, we’ve been working on it a lot, and it was really good to have the weekday game just to test things out.’

Syracuse (18-1) isn’t in an enviable position as it tries to test things out with a new-look defense during the season. But with Williams out indefinitely with a knee injury, the Orange had to make all the right adjustments in its 3-1 win over Binghamton.

Williams leads the team with 190 digs for the season and averages 3.52 per set. The Orange now has to put players at positions at different positions, trying to come up with the best solution to the new defensive problem it’s faced with.

Coming into the game, Syracuse knew everyone was going to have to step up to play a solid defense to try and replace its leading defender. And if it needed any extra motivation to get a win, Syracuse was coming off its first loss of the season after being defeated 3-2 by South Florida Sunday.

‘This past weekend was absolutely crazy,’ SU assistant coach Carol LaMarche said. ‘Especially having an offseason where we were totally set with our offense, and at the last minute, everything was thrown off. We’re still kind of figuring things out.’

But early on, SU wasn’t able to adjust quickly enough. Binghamton seemed to find all the holes in the Syracuse defense in the first set, as the Orange struggled to make solid passes and digs.

One of the biggest problems the Syracuse defense faced early on was it had to adjust to Binghamton’s return shots. The Bearcats were returning over the Orange blockers, stifling the defense, which was expecting lower shots.

‘I think we were still nervous about the change in the lineup,’ LaMarche said. ‘We weren’t sure what Binghamton was going to be doing, and once we figured it out, we were able to adjust.’

But as the game went on, the Orange adjustments all began to fall into place. The players started to know what they had to do and where they needed to be to do it. Most of all, almost as if someone flipped a switch, Binghamton couldn’t get anything past the SU defenders.

‘Defense goes a lot on blocking,’ defender Sarah Hayes said. ‘So I feel like it has a lot to do with us getting used to how everyone’s blocking and getting into the holes and getting ready. We just got more aggressive as the game moved on.’

Hayes was left with having to replace Williams as the libero, finishing the game with 12 digs.

Besides Hayes stepping up, Noemie Lefebvre’s performance also allowed the Orange to breathe a little easier. The outside hitter, who played libero for about half of last season, finished the game with a double-double, notching 18 digs and 17 kills.

‘That was definitely a good challenge for our team, having to adjust, because she definitely was playing consistently in the back, giving us an advantage,’ Lefebvre said. ‘Today I think we did a pretty good job. We were consistent with passing, and we were able to adjust after the first set.’

Part of those adjustments involved moving the lineups around to the point where the players were comfortable in their positions. Syracuse moved Todd from the front middle blocker position to the left outside hitter on the back row. Freshman Lindsay McCabe then came in to play middle.

With that one change, the entire dynamic of the SU defense changed. And the Orange defense survived, and even excelled, without Williams.

‘Hayley has such a tremendous reach,’ LaMarche said. ‘She was what we needed tonight, and it’s definitely part of the reason we were able to turn things around.’

cjiseman@syr.edu

Published on September 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman