If history forecasts the future, the Syracuse field hockey team will be crushed this weekend. Its 14-year streak of Big East Tournament appearances will be left to rot in the annals of some obscure record book.

If players learn from history, Syracuse will rise at Coyne Field on Sunday. It will beat Connecticut and exact some revenge for a record book’s worth of frustrations.

And if history has any bearing at all on the present, the Syracuse-Connecticut game will, as it has many times before, change perceptions about this sometimes slow, sometimes complicated sport by showcasing an aggression-packed grudge match. In all likelihood, the game will be exemplary of why this matchup is one of SU’s best rivalries in any sport.

‘Our entire team likes to beat UConn,’ SU sophomore Joanne Lombard said. ‘We all played with a lot of their girls in high school, because they come from near us. If we didn’t really hate the girls in high school, we hate them now.’

Said senior Ann-Marie Guglieri: ‘Even if they’re not a physical team and we’re not a physical team, now and forever, every time we play it’s going to be a physical game.’

And an important one. To reach the Big East tournament – which SU has never missed – the Orangewomen (6-9, 1-3 Big East) need to beat the Huskies (12-4, 2-1), who must then also lose to Providence (8-9, 0-3) on Nov. 1. Connecticut qualifies by beating either SU or Providence.

Not that these teams need any extra incentives. History has provided plenty:

(BULLET) In the 1980s, while Connecticut was a national power and Syracuse a developing program, the Huskies sometimes invited the Orangewomen to their preseason tournament, mostly because they needed a team sure to lose in the first round. But in 1990, SU beat UConn, 2-1, in overtime, marking the first time Connecticut failed to win its own tournament.

(BULLET) In five consecutive seasons from 1996-2000, Connecticut eliminated Syracuse from the conference tournament, twice in overtime. All-time, the Orangewomen are 5-17-1 against the Huskies, the only Big East team they do not have a winning record against.

(BULLET) Tensions escalated in 2000, when former UConn forward Amy Marland clocked SU’s Dalton Beaver with her stick. Though probably accidental, the hit ended Beaver’s career, because doctors did not clear her after she suffered post-traumatic concussion syndrome.

(BULLET) The following season, with SU players still steaming, the Orangewomen downed the Huskies, 4-1, to clinch the Big East regular-season title and keep UConn out of the conference tournament. After the game, SU head coach Kathleen Parker told Beaver, ‘This one’s for you. We owed Connecticut one.’

‘Dalton getting hurt definitely played in our minds,’ Guglieri said. ‘Beating them after that happened felt really good. We felt like maybe we gave something back to Dalton.’

While Syracuse players said that game and the series of defeats before it fueled an already potent feud, Connecticut head coach Nancy Stevens downplayed any notion of a rivalry, insisting the Huskies treat every conference opponent the same. When told SU players consider UConn their top rival, she expressed surprise, saying, ‘That may be their perspective.’

Instead, Stevens emphasized an amiable relationship between her and Parker. They have talked by phone frequently, Stevens said, especially while the Atlantic Coast Conference courted SU. In the mid-1990s, they served together in the College Field Hockey Coaches Association (now called the National Field Hockey Coaches Association) administration, Parker as president and Stevens as vice president.

‘It goes beyond knocking heads on a Sunday,’ Stevens said. ‘I have a great deal of respect for her, and I think she does the same for me.’

Any disagreements between the schools stem from Connecticut’s style of play. SU players swear the Huskies seek physical contact and are reckless in their ball pursuit. And though Parker never suggested the hit on Beaver was intentional, she said a year later Marland was careless with her stick.

‘Connecticut plays such a physical game,’ Lombard said. ‘They like to push us around, but we don’t take much of that.’

‘They’re not afraid of contact,’ Parker said. ‘They will foul you to stop any momentum that you can get down the field. Very seldom do you see a fast break against Connecticut. They’ll foul to get it done. It’s just a style of play.’

Stevens said her team prides itself on tackling – in field hockey, that means dropping your stick and wrestling control of the ball, not implying physical contact – and defense. But she said she does not condone body-to-body contact, which is illegal.

‘It’s kind of amusing to me as a coach,’ Stevens said, ‘when sometimes we play a team we think is rough, but then we’ll hear back, ‘Connecticut is rough.’ We’re shocked when we hear what other teams perceive our style to be.

‘What you find is Connecticut takes a great deal of pride in playing defense. We have a good ability to dispossess other teams of the ball. I’m sure that’s frustrating for teams that play against us.’

On Sunday, Syracuse will need to overcome that defense and goalie Maureen Butler, the Big East’s top keeper with a 1.05 goals-against average. It also needs to slow an offense boasting the conference’s top two scorers: Lauren Henderson (14 goals, 1 assist) and Mary Jo Malone (13 goals, 3 assists).

The Orangewomen should play in front of a respectable crowd. They average only 184 fans, but the Connecticut game is popular with players’ friends and relatives. Even fans turned off by the sometimes confusing sport appreciate the subtle jabs and occasional verbal spats of this rivalry.

It’s a rivalry, both schools agree, that is good for the sport.

‘This is the game I tell everyone to come out to,’ Lombard said. ‘This game, because it’s so physical and people are getting pushed around all the time, they all get into it.

‘I tell all my friends, ‘Forget about the bitter cold and come out with bells on.’ You know it’s going to be an amazing game.’

Published on October 23, 2003 at 12:00 pm