What goes around comes around.

The Syracuse volleyball team knows that adage pretty well by now.

After receiving the benefit of a scoring blunder against Colgate in the Big Orange Tournament three weeks ago, the Orangewomen learned what it was like to be on the butt end of things last weekend at the New Hampshire Tournament.

Syracuse hopes to start things anew when it plays Georgetown to open up Big East play at Manley Field House tonight at 7. And they’d like to do it without having to growl at the scorekeeper’s table.

In a loss versus Florida International last weekend at New Hampshire, the Orangewomen were trailing, 6-8, in the fifth game when officials awarded what should have been a Syracuse point to FIU.

In the same process, the scorekeeper subtracted a point from Syracuse. What should have been a 7-8 match suddenly became a 9-5 advantage for Florida International.

Head coach Jing Pu and assistant coach Alexis Dankulic disputed the call to no avail.

‘The scorekeeper and the referee need to stay on top of things,’ Dankulic said. ‘The referee should go to the score table after switching sides and check to make sure everything is okay. The referee at that game just didn’t have control of it.’

Dankulic said even FIU coach Cookie Stevens knew there was a problem with the score. But the referee didn’t want to discuss the discrepancy.

‘They knew it happened and didn’t do anything about it,’ senior captain Christen Casey said. ‘They weren’t about to listen to what Jing had to say, except probably give him a yellow card.’

Part of the reason the referee didn’t want to stop play may have been Rule 8, Article 4 of the official collegiate volleyball rules:

‘If a discrepancy exists between the scoring section and the running score column of the score sheet, the scoring section is the official score. If a discrepancy exists between the score sheet and the visible scoring device, the score sheet is the official score.’

In other words, no matter what the away team may have on its bench score sheet, the home team’s score sheet remains official.

‘The rule doesn’t bother me,’ Dankulic said. ‘It just depends on the scorekeeper. The scorekeeper has to have confidence to stop the match and say, ‘I have a problem, let’s straighten this out.’ ‘

Dankulic said she feels confident with the way Syracuse scorekeepers handle the match. But some at Colgate may disagree.

In the Big Orange Tournament against Syracuse three weeks ago, Colgate fell victim to another scoring blunder.

What should have been a Colgate point was rewarded to Syracuse. The two-point swing ended up being the margin of victory for the Orangewomen.

‘It’s always frustrating when something goes on in the books that affects you in a negative way,’ Colgate head coach Jenna Panatier said, ‘especially when you work really hard to get so far and you have the wind taken out of your sails by a simple, yet poignant, error in the book.’

Panatier said she doesn’t mind that the home team supplies the scorekeeper, or for that matter, is responsible for the official score.

‘At some point you have to have an overruling factor,’ Panatier said. ‘You have to have a standard for all teams and that means the home book is the official score. You just have to make sure the person taking care of the score is confident.’

In both scenarios, Syracuse and Colgate could have protested the game, but both teams decided against it.

SU just wants a clean slate going into conference play.

‘We need to take all the mistakes and positives out of all the tournaments and really evaluate what we did good and what we did bad,’ Casey said. ‘Everybody needs to do what they need to do.’

One such player who stepped up last weekend was sophomore Jessica Logan. The 6-foot-1 outside hitter tallied 46 kills in New Hampshire.

But as in any sport, the Orangewomen are concentrating on playing as a team.

This, they said, is the key to a successful Big East season.

‘Every game we’ve had a different player step up,’ Dankulic said, ‘which shows every player has the potential to step up. Now we just need three or four players at their peak performance at once.

‘There’s no high expectations for anyone, except for them pulling together and playing as a team.’

Published on September 25, 2003 at 12:00 pm