Mackenzie Weaver crouched and prepared for the serve from Ryann DeJarld. As the ball came in she tried to pass it with an upward motion. The ball instead slipped off her arms and fell to the court. She tapped the court after the error.

The slip-up came after a first set in which Weaver had back-to-back attacking errors. It was indicative of what would be a common flaw for SU on Friday night.

Syracuse (3-12, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) failed to keep up with a stronger and older Notre Dame (14-3, 5-0) team and kept making errors that eventually doomed it in the eventual 3-0 loss.

With 20 attacking errors, the Orange defense was not able to get in rhythm and left too much open space on the court especially the right side. Head coach Leonid Yelin said that ultimately doomed the team, and said that the goal was to throw Notre Dame off with serving.

“It was frustration on the bench, coaches and probably everyone because we had already gave up on the slide one block (to the right side) and we (knew what was going to happen),” Yelin said. “We didn’t take any advantage, especially about kid who is (5 foot 8) and we were jumping like she was (6 foot 9). The ball was going everywhere.”

“It was a hole. One hand was here, one hand was there … that really destroyed us.”

In the first set with the Orange trailing by six, outside hitter Anastasiya Gorelina tried to spike a hard ball but it sailed straight out of bounds. The sophomore, who is one of the more reliable hitters on the team, could not seem to get anything to go as she had a -.083 hitting percentage on 24 total attempts including six errors.

The Orange lost the first set by nine but was it was in it the whole way for the second set. But after being up 24-22, the Fighting Irish tied the game after two errors by the Orange, and then won the set with two straight kills.

But the Orange couldn’t carry over any of that play into a third set it handily lost, 25-10.

“When we came into the locker room (after the second set) and sat down we didn’t refocus for (the third set),” Weaver said. “We had a lot of momentum and soon as we got back out there it had gone, and it frustrating.

“We mentally broke down in the third set,” she added. “I think it comes with experience and it comes with youth. My frustration was that at some points there were people fighting on the court and they weren’t like giving up … We have to learn from our mistakes.”

Yelin’s message to the team echoed Weaver’s and centered around the ability to prepare for opponents and maturity as a team.

“They have to, they have to learn how to prepare for a team, they don’t (yet) know how … the game day (has to) start the day before not on the game day,” Yelin said. “There is not a universal recipe for everyone. Until they will know (how to prepare for teams) its (losses) will happen many, many times.”

Published on October 8, 2016 at 1:45 am

Contact Jake: jafalk@syr.edu