When the Syracuse field hockey team announced its starting lineup for Friday night’s 3-0 win over Massachusetts, a familiar name was missing.

For the third straight game, Jackie Sheaffer stood on the sideline for the start of play instead of manning her familiar midfielder position for the Orangewomen.

Sheaffer has been a consistent presence over the past two years. The senior started all 21 games last year and had started the first seven of this year until head coach Kathleen Parker decided to make a change.

‘I think coach had said the intensity level the last couple of games and practices, I didn’t have a lot of hard hits,’ Sheaffer said. ‘Being in the backfield, you have to be a little bit stronger. And my strength sometimes isn’t all about my hitting – it’s more my passing skills.’

‘(I’m) just trying to find the right combination and trying to find a little bit more power in the backfield,’ Parker said of using Sheaffer as a substitute. ‘(Defender) Erin Fitzgerald hits the ball harder than Jackie does, although Jackie did a nice job (Friday).’

After about 20 minutes on the sideline, though, Parker inserted Sheaffer. It only took her a few minutes before she made an impact on SU’s second goal of the game.

With just under 8:00 left in the first half, Sheaffer started the penalty corner that led to Michelle Sola’s second goal of the season.

Sheaffer slid a pass along the Coyne Field turf to fellow senior Ann-Marie Guglieri, who stopped it for the hard-hitting Sola and a two-goal lead.

‘When Jackie’s in the game,’ Parker said, ‘she’s the person we want to insert because she’s the most accurate.’

Sheaffer ended up playing the remainder of the game, although coming off the bench was motivation for her.

However, having to come off the bench was easier on Friday night than it had been in the previous two games. According to her, that had just as much to do with the entire team effort as it did with her play.

‘Almost every time not coming in, it’s definitely motivation,’ Sheaffer said, ‘because you feel like you have more pressure on your back and you want to play harder and play better to stay in.’

‘We had a full week of practice to think about this game,’ Guglieri said. ‘We made specific goals going into the game. We had our focus not so much on the outcome, but on specific things to do, and I think that helped us out a lot.’

Sheaffer agreed about the Orangewomen’s focus going into the game.

‘It wasn’t any different,’ Sheaffer said. ‘Other games it’s been different because it just felt like, when we came out, the whole team would come out not feeling as intense. Tonight we were all looking forward to this game, so we were going into it with more confidence.’

Published on October 6, 2003 at 12:00 pm