Syracuse has been two different teams its past two games.

The Orange came out firing against Marquette last Saturday, when SU forward Federico Agreda took a shot soon after the game’s start and teammate Nick Roydhouse followed with another about two minutes later that went wide right. It seemed like the Orange was going for the kill every single possession.

But against Binghamton on Tuesday, the team couldn’t find its rhythm on offense and fell flat.

‘We can’t let our heads drop now,’ SU defender Ryan Tessler said. ‘Saturday is a very big game. We can’t dread on this. Pittsburgh’s a very winnable game.’

The game against Binghamton was not supposed to be a step back for the Orange (2-6, 0-1 Big East) before it hit the road to play Pittsburgh (2-6-1, 0-1 Big East) on Saturday. The final nonconference game of the season should have been a tune-up and a win. Instead, SU lost 2-1 and heads back into Big East play looking for its first win in five matches. It will need to repeat its offensive play against Marquette — where SU lost 3-2 — and not Binghamton in order to pick up a crucial conference win.

After the lackluster showing against Binghamton, the Orange finds itself looking forward to playing a new game and starting fresh. SU head coach Ian McIntyre said the team is moving on after the subpar performance and shifting its focus to the Panthers.

‘That’s the exciting part,’ McIntyre said. ‘Now we’ve got some real good games coming up and it starts against Pittsburgh. And we’ll be well-prepared and ready.’

Watching the Marquette game tape would be a good place to start. Although SU lost, the team recorded 25 shots on offense and scored two goals, an impressive offensive outburst for an Orange team that often struggles to score.

The team carried its early aggression on offense throughout the game. On one play, Roydhouse used fancy footwork to get downfield and executed a give-and-go with Mark Brode to set up an open shot. Roydhouse came up empty, but the movement on offense was encouraging.

And though those early shots by Agreda and Roydhouse didn’t find the back of the net, SU was creating chances.

It’s something the Orange couldn’t do against Binghamton. SU totaled just four shots in the first half. And until it scored a goal in the final two minutes, the closest the Orange came to scoring was on a disallowed goal.

SU will use the past two games to prepare for Pittsburgh. The team can see what worked well against the Golden Eagles and what didn’t against the Bearcats.

On Saturday, the Orange hopes to rediscover the aggression it had against Marquette to earn a key conference victory.

‘We can’t be complacent against Pittsburgh like we were (Tuesday),’ SU midfielder Ted Cribley said. ‘We can’t come out against Pittsburgh with a performance like that because if we do we’ll lose another game and then it’s downhill. We need a win under our belt.’

Each game moving forward will either bolster or ruin SU’s goal of making it to the Big East tournament for the first time since 2005. To achieve that goal, the team must find its consistency on offense in its final eight games of the season — all coming against conference opponents.

‘I think we’ve been unfortunate this season with a few results and that’s maybe hanging over our shoulders,’ Cribley said. ‘We have to take the positives and move on.’

SU forward Dan Summers called the upcoming schedule the ‘nitty gritty’ and most important part of SU’s season. The team knows it needs to raise its level of play to compete in the conference.

And the Orange knows it can’t win if it makes the same mistakes it did against Binghamton. But if SU corrects those mistakes, Cribley said the team will come out on top against the Panthers.

‘I think we need to believe a bit more,’ Cribley said. ‘We need to win against Pittsburgh. If everything goes to plan and we work hard, we will.’

rnmarcus@syr.edu

 

Published on September 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Rachel: rnmarcus@syr.edu