Soccer fans at South Fork High School probably haven’t seen Hansen Woodruff play since he left the sunshine of Stuart, Fla., for the tundra of Syracuse. Unless they wanted to drive three hours to Tampa, Fla., to see SU play South Florida last year, the best option for Woodruff’s family and friends was watching game broadcasts online.

So now that everyone in the nation will be able to see the Orange men’s soccer team in action, Woodruff is making sure everyone in his hometown knew about it.

Tonight’s matchup between Syracuse (6-6-4, 3-6 Big East) and St. John’s (8-5-4, 5-2-2) at SU Soccer Stadium will air live on ESPNU at 7 p.m., marking the first match in program history on national television. And in case the Orange needs any more motivation than realizing the country is watching, it is playing for its postseason life for the second straight game.

‘I helped start a Facebook event telling people about the game so my friends wouldn’t forget,’ Woodruff said. ‘My friends back home are telling everybody about the game, and all the kids at my old high school know about it. Hopefully, everybody’s watching.’

For Syracuse to reach the Big East Tournament, it needs to beat the Red Storm tonight and DePaul Saturday, then hope Cincinnati and Rutgers play to a draw later this weekend.

It’s a long shot, especially since St. John’s and DePaul are a combined 11-6-2 in conference play, but tonight’s contest means more to a struggling SU program than just the remainder of this season.

NCAA soccer games are rarely televised, especially on a major network family like ESPN. ESPNU broadcasted just one other match all year – Rutgers-St. John’s on Oct. 24 – and will not show another one after tonight.

Since ESPN announced its decision to televise the game in early October, SU head coach Dean Foti has used it in his recruiting pitch. Potential recruits who may not have time to make an official visit to Syracuse now have an easy opportunity to see the team play.

‘It’s great from an exposure standpoint, and it’s nice to have recruits from around the country have a real-life look of what we have here, especially guys we may not have up here otherwise,’ Foti said. ‘It’s a great experience for the current players, too. It’s a window into our program we never had before.’

But with all the fanfare surrounding the game tonight, the team needs to stay focused on the task at hand. Foti acknowledged that having a nationally televised game coincide with a must-win match could be a distraction, so he hasn’t brought it up with the squad at all in practice this week in an attempt to keep the players focused on beating the Red Storm.

Still, the squad hasn’t forgotten about ESPNU, and those who have will remember when they see the camera crew setting up at the stadium. Senior defenseman and team captain Brad Peetoom said he didn’t think anyone on the team had played on national television before, and the players were clearly more hyped than normal.

In practice, the Orange has emphasized starting strong, hoping to calm everyone’s nerves and take the attention away from the TV crew and onto the task at hand.

‘We want to get off to a good start because we think momentum’s already in our favor,’ Woodruff said. ‘If we come out so excited being on TV in such a big game and we get scored on early, it will just deflate us. If we come out strong and stay focused, we should be all right.’

Because it’s such a huge game, though, the players have no time to worry much about the future. Tonight is the last home game for the Orange’s three seniors, Peetoom, Aaron Bonser and James Goodwin. The trio will be honored before the match.

Senior Day just adds another possible distraction to a game already laden with storylines. Having a match on national TV is something nice to think about in the offseason, but Syracuse hopes the offseason doesn’t start quite yet.

‘Every game has distractions at some level or another,’ Foti said. ‘We demonstrated the ability to block that stuff hope, so you just hope you could keep doing it. But you never know until you get to it.’

Published on October 30, 2007 at 12:00 pm