With the season coming to a close this past Saturday in South Bend, Ind., Syracuse found itself outside of the NCAA tournament. A season of ups and downs for the Orange culminated in a .500 overall record.

One full season in the Atlantic Coast Conference is now behind the women after the move from the Big East. The ACC is a conference that the team unanimously discussed as a much tougher conference than the Big East.

“There are a lot more teams that are ranked,” captain Lindsay McCabe said, “even the teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament were tough, like Wake Forest, they beat Miami. The level of competition overall is just better.”

Head coach Leonid Yelin added that opposed to the Big East, “there are better teams and better athletes” in the ACC. He also said that “commitment from the administration to the volleyball teams” is a reason why ACC teams are stronger.

After starting 0-4 in ACC play, Syracuse was able to bounce back. The conference switch put the team behind early, but SU worked through the early-season struggles to finish 11-5 in the last 16 games.

After it beat Virginia on Oct. 11, the season turned around. Syracuse began to play as a team. Showing constant improvements on both offense and defense, the Orange began to garner more respect.

“They got better and better connecting with the setter,” Yelin said, “so our offense began going special when we were passing well. The connections were much better. It was more of a team offense, it was hard to predict who the setter was going to set to, putting a lot of pressure on the team’s defense we played against.”

The ACC has tougher competition; therefore the Orange needed to raise its play. To do so, freshman setter Erica Handley was asked to step up and be more decisive on offense. She responded, culminating in a very strong freshman campaign.

Last year, Syracuse was not required to be as sharp game in and game out due to the reduced talent of its opponents. But being in the ACC this season was a different story.

“We knew that we couldn’t take any days off,” McCabe said, “no games were easy and no practices could be easy. We just tried to work our system, working hard to hone our skills.”

Blocker Monika Salkute expanded, explaining that the level of play is much more equal across the whole conference. She said even the bottom few teams in the conference are able to beat the best.

“In the Big East, you can tell the difference between the very strong teams and the very weak teams,” Salkute said. “You never know who will win, because you see the top teams losing and the bottom teams winning.”

For the team to improve its record six games, improvement would need to be made. It was not a lack of skill, though, hitter Nicolette Serratore said, but rather a lack of team chemistry.

“I think we really just came together as a team,” Serratore said. “We knew we had the skill from the beginning and it just had to click. So I think it was just the team chemistry that made us successful.”

Yelin understands the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. The heightened play in the ACC has led to many opportunities to develop and become a more talented group of players. Yelin said it is a whole different level of volleyball in the ACC.

But Syracuse’s surge was too late and it missed the NCAA tournament. This season, the ACC did not have a tournament put in place, leaving a team like Syracuse out of contention for an NCAA tournament birth.

The ACC tournament would give teams a chance to make the NCAA tournament even if they had a bad start to the season. This issue is something that Yelin plans to bring up at the ACC coaches’ meeting in January.

“Especially for us since we did so much better at the end, we would have made it to the (ACC) tournament” Serratore said. “And I think we would have been able to upset some of the teams we lost to in the beginning. It would have given us a shot at making the NCAA tournament for sure.”

Published on December 4, 2013 at 2:04 am

Contact Eric: esriter@syr.edu