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During the waning moments of the third set, Syracuse trailed Duke 22-9. The Blue Devils served and the Orange dug it out, setting the ball up in the air for one of their hitters. Instead of attacking, three Syracuse players watched the ball hit the ground.

That moment encapsulated Syracuse’s (2-16, 0-8 ACC) offensive hardships against Duke (12-7, 3-5 ACC). The Orange’s struggles and lack of scoring punch led to the Orange being swept by the Blue Devils. Syracuse head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said his team struggled to find consistency on the offensive side of the ball.

“I think finding our rhythm was very difficult for us today. And obviously communication helps to kind of get that started,” Ganesharatnam said.

SU failed to score over 10 points in the final set. Even during the other two sets when the team had 14 and 16 points, respectively, many of Syracuse’s points were a result of Duke errors. The Blue Devils committed 10 errors across the first and second set, helping boost what was a poor offensive effort by Syracuse.

The lack of offensive rhythm has been a constant throughout the season. Syracuse has had clean offensive games before, but it’s failed to do it on a consistent basis.

Early in the third set, Lauren McCabe was given a good serve and simply missed the ball, gifting the Blue Devils a point. Similarly, there were a number of times where Syracuse players hit the ball too hard, careening them out of bounds. Syracuse finished with 24 attack errors compared to 25 kills in the game.

“I think numbers don’t lie,” Ganesharatnam said. “If we want to have a realistic chance, we need to have better numbers. Better error to kill ratio. We just had too many errors on offense.”

Cherlin Antonio struggled to keep her efforts in play, finishing the contest with 10 attack errors and just a -.381 hitting percentage. Antonio, who leads Syracuse in kills this season, carries a massive responsibility on her shoulders. When Antonio’s played well, Syracuse’s offense has followed. But when she’s struggled, the Orange have as well.

Almost all of Antonio’s attack errors came because she hit the ball too hard, landing out of bounds. Although Antonio’s aggressive attacks didn’t work against Duke, Ganesharatnam believes lessening the powerful hits would be a disservice to the team.

“Cherlin is our power hitter. She’s our best wing hitter. She needs to be aggressive. If she’s not aggressive, it hurts her game,” Ganesharatnam said. “You can be aggressive and still have less errors. And that’s what you got to do.”

Ganesharatnam said Syracuse needs to do a better job of attacking from the wing and get higher percentage looks. Ganesharatnam reiterated Antonio’s importance and the need for her aggressiveness at the net. He said she just needs to clean up her errors at times.

Antonio wasn’t the only player who had an off-night. Veronica Sierzant contributed six of the remaining 14 errors that weren’t committed by Antonio. However, Ganesharatnam believes players like Sierzant, who aren’t true hitters, should be absolved from their poor performances.

“She’s a setter hitting on the right side. (It’s like) we’re asking a point guard to play power forward or center. So for her to produce the numbers she has produced in the last three weeks is tremendous, in my opinion,” Ganesharatnam said.

Ganesharatnam said despite being 2-16, his team is still progressing while trying to find solutions to its problems. With players injured causing others to play out of position, Ganesharatnam continued to try and make the best out of their situation. Still, it resulted in a loss Sunday night.

Published on October 15, 2023 at 6:29 pm