Chelsea Strodel has never been to Nashville, Tenn., home of Vanderbilt. The senior defender on the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team doesn’t think anybody on the squad has even visited the state of Tennessee before.

The women on the 2007 roster are not alone. In the program’s 10-year history, the Orange has never played a game south of North Carolina.

Maybe a change of scenery is what Syracuse needs to finally shake the proverbial monkey off its back. Despite an overall winning percentage of .660, the Orange has never won an NCAA tournament game.

Coming off its first Big East championship, and arguably its most successful season ever, this year’s team may be the one to reach the elusive second round.

In a surprising draw, ninth-seeded Syracuse (12-5) visits Nashville to take on eighth-seeded Vanderbilt (11-5) in the opening round of the NCAA tournament Sunday. Although the Orange (No. 7) was ranked six spots higher than the Commodores (No. 13) in the latest poll, Syracuse was not one of the top eight spots and will have to win two road games to advance to the final four.

‘We thought we might get a home seed, but because of circumstances, we didn’t,’ said Strodel, who returned from injury Sunday after missing six games. ‘It’s not a big deal. A lot of us are excited to go down there. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of different teams we thought we might play, and Vanderbilt was one of them.’

Syracuse has qualified for the NCAA Tournament five times before this season, all under head coach Lisa Miller. Most recently, the Orange suffered a disappointing 9-8 loss to Dartmouth in 2005.

Sunday marks the second NCAA tournament try for this year’s seniors – a group of six with some of the program’s most successful players, including Jill DePetris and Gaddy Fortune. In their four seasons, the seniors went 45-17, the best four-year stretch in program history.

But a big NCAA Tournament win still eludes them, the same way it eluded all the classes that came before.

‘It’s a little bit of pressure on your shoulders that we’re 0-5 in the tournament,’ DePetris said. ‘I think this is the team that’s going to take it. We have so much leadership on our team, and everybody wants to be here. I’ve never seen that before.’

By winning the inaugural Big East tournament two weeks ago, Syracuse became the first team other than Georgetown to earn the conference’s automatic bid. Although the Big East had five teams ranked in the top 20 throughout the season, no other team reached the NCAA Tournament. The ACC, arguably the best conference in the country, has four teams in the field of 16.

A 12-5 record and Big East championship appeared to be enough to earn one of the top eight seeds and a home game, but the NCAA selection committee disagreed.

The Orange finished with the 13th-best RPI in the country – worse than other Big East teams Notre Dame and Georgetown, both teams that Syracuse defeated – even though it played the top three teams in the nation.

Syracuse was hurt by scheduling weak teams like Cornell, Binghamton and Albany early in the season. But Miller said playing regional opponents was her biggest priority after playing the conference. Miller sees this as a fundamental flaw of the selection process.

‘As lacrosse spreads out, we have to depend less on the traditional powers,’ Miller said. ‘The ACC will argue strength of schedule until they’re blue in the face, and that’s fine and dandy, but we don’t have the budget to fly down and play the ACC for every game.’

Even if Syracuse beats Vanderbilt, it’s not going to be an easy road to the final four. If the Orange wins Sunday, it will likely have to take on two-time defending national champion Northwestern in the quarterfinals. The Wildcats defeated the Orange earlier in the season and have won 17 straight.

‘I think they recognize what bracket they’re in,’ Miller said. ‘If you want to win a national championship, which is a program goal, a university goal, you’re going to have to play Northwestern.

‘There’s no way around it. It’s a reality, but you have to beat Vanderbilt to get to Northwestern, so that’s what we’re focusing on.’

Published on June 4, 2007 at 12:00 pm