When the No. 3 Syracuse field hockey team heads to practice, it knows one aspect it won’t be participating in – ‘shooting drills.’

Instead, the focus is on something much more potent.

‘Our mindset is, we don’t call them shooting drills, we call them scoring drills,’ sophomore forward Shelby Schraden said.’ ‘That’s something we started earlier this preseason, it makes it a little more fun – we’re not just shooting, we’re scoring.’

To underline the new attitude, Bradley has her team participate in tough drills to simulate scoring situations.

With the field soaking wet, Bradley and her assistants throw inlet passes toward the goal, forcing the player on the receiving end to completely extend themselves in order to score.

‘She’ll time it so you either have to lay out, or else it’s not a goal,’ Schraden said. ‘Do you want to score or do you want to watch the ball go out of bounds?

‘A lot of us were getting dirty and bloody, but it was fun.’

So far this season, the Orange has tallied 35 goals in six games, a far cry from 13 goals through six games in 2006 – one year before Bradley took over the program.

Syracuse’s offense has played a large role in the team’s success this year, including a monumental win over No. 1 Maryland on Saturday, and has helped the team ascend 15 spots in the polls, from No. 18 to No. 3 – the highest rank in team history.

Since taking the reigns in 2007, Bradley has shifted the mindset of the Syracuse program from that of a strong defense to an opportunistic, ever-attacking offense. This leads to a more aggressive front line and, in turn, a higher level of scoring.

For Bradley and her players, going from a team plagued by offensive struggles to one of the highest-scoring squads in the Big East in two years comes down to philosophy.

‘We set out to create spaces wide and deep behind (the opposition’s)stronger defenders, and just kind of move the ball around with speed,’ sophomore forward Lindsey Conrad said. ‘We keep it wide so we can make the cuts up the sidelines for the deep ball, and then we get deep to create space for the midfielders to come in behind.’

Like an aggressive basketball team, Bradley said her team is always running. Regardless of the position on the field, the Orange can be seen swarming toward the ball, applying what she calls ‘full court pressure.’

When the offense gains possession of the ball, they set up Bradley’s signature attack, an offense that she said is reminiscent of another former high-scoring sports juggernaut.

‘It’s sort of like a triangle offense the Chicago Bulls would play,’ she said. ‘If you take somebody away, there’s someone else that’s open.’

This year, the Orange has 12 different players with goals, seven of which have scored on multiple occasions.

‘It’s awesome,’ Bradley said. ‘It makes us hard to defend against.’

Although Bradley’s offense is designed to score from every angle, there are still some players that stand out as natural goal scorers, she said.

Conrad is one of those players. She’s tied for the team lead in goals with six, and has proven her ability to find the back of the net.

On Sept. 16, in a tight game against No. 10 Michigan State, Conrad broke the match wide open.

After Michigan State goalkeeper Elissa Unger blocked a shot, Bradley said Conrad took the ball while juking a defender to her right, split the defenders to her left and drew Unger out of position which allowed her to score.

‘It was one of the best individual performances I’ve ever seen,’ Bradley said. ‘It was like a video you’d see of an international player – it was a world class goal, something you don’t see that often in college hockey.’

As SU’s offense surges, a memory looming in Bradley’s past may explain why her team scores in such high numbers.

‘Well I was a goalkeeper when I played, so I never got to score,’ Bradley joked. ‘So that’s probably why I’m so obsessed with scoring.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on September 16, 2008 at 12:00 pm