It was a tale of two matches this weekend for Syracuse.

In Thursday’s game, all it took was a hard slide tackle from Syracuse defender Skylar Sabbag to send then-No. 12 Boston College a message: Take SU women’s soccer seriously.

Fast forward three days: Syracuse faced Rhode Island, a team that managed only three wins in its previous season. But instead of riding the wave of momentum after a stellar effort against BC, Syracuse came out flat and fell to a lesser opponent 2-1.

‘Every player was up for (the BC game), and then we became Rhode Island’s ‘BC,” said SU head coach Phil Wheddon.

SU’s uneven performance is one the Orange (1-2-1, 0-0 Big East) hopes to avoid the rest of the season, as it searches for consistency in conference play. Syracuse proved it could stick with one of the premier programs in the country in Boston College, but couldn’t muster up that same fighting mentality against a beatable Rhode Island team. And with Big East opponents coming up in a little more than a week, Syracuse realizes now it has to have the same intense approach night in and night out.

Before Thursday’s contest, the Eagles were snapping off pictures of themselves rather than warming up. Wheddon made sure to point out that disrespect right away, and it worked like a charm. To the Orange that was a slap in the face, adding even more motivation to bring it against a ranked opponent.

The result was Syracuse playing to a 0-0 tie on the road against a top-10 team. It was the best Wheddon has ever seen his team play.

‘It obviously got us all fired up and ready to go, so we definitely proved them wrong,’ senior defender Casey Ramirez said. ‘They felt a little stupid afterward I’m sure.’

And with that gutty performance, Wheddon’s team went from underdog to favorite in the course of a single weekend.

Underestimating the Rams on Sunday was something that Wheddon worried about going into the game and for good reason. Rather than sticking to the game plan that earned a well-fought tie against the Eagles, Wheddon felt the Orange veered away from that.

‘There was a little bit of a letdown, not an awful lot, but I think we just expected to win,’ he said.

He said his team tried to pull off some things against Rhode Island that it didn’t against BC, with some fancier play rather than keeping things simple like passing from point A to point B.

Jenna Rickan said that finding a way to replicate that effort against Boston College was on the team’s mind for the Rhode Island game, but it just didn’t happen.

Sophomore defender Cecilia Borgstrom, the only Orange player to net a goal on the weekend, said the message Wheddon voiced after that loss to Rhode Island was to treat every team the same way. No more or less.

‘Don’t think of what they’re called,’ Borgstrom said Wheddon told the team. ‘Just play the game.’

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. While Syracuse was on its toes against BC, a couple of defensive lapses cost the Orange two goals against the Rams. Rhode Island also put all six of its shots on net. Against BC, Syracuse forced the Eagles to take multiple shots from 30 yards out.

‘That’s a problem. We have to be consistent, and we’re working on it,’ Borgstrom said.

One positive SU can pull from this weekend, though, is how much and how quickly the tides can turn.

‘I definitely think it was a wake-up call for all of us,’ said Ramirez.

So for Syracuse, the goal the rest of the season is to bring the same hungry attitude into every game. Unless, that is, the opposing team provokes them by taking pictures before a match.

‘I think just coming back and seeing that not to take any game for granted really taught us a good, hard, but good lesson,’ Rickan said. ‘Obviously, you want to do well every weekend, but at least it’s now, in the beginning, so we can learn from it.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

Published on September 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm