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With Syracuse trailing 24-23 in the second set of their match against Florida State, SU head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam called time out. The pressure was mounting for the Orange, but in the huddle, Ganesharatnam told his team to “focus on the basics”. A block, service ace, and kill later, Syracuse managed to win the second set in dramatic fashion.

Coming into the match, Syracuse has lost 15 straight matches and 28 consecutive sets. Despite winning the second set against Florida State (19-8, 13-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) Syracuse (2-23, 0-15 ACC) fell in four sets. But the climactic second set win by the Orange marked their first set win since October 8th when they won the first set against Wake Forest.

Despite the poor run, head coach Ganeshartanam thinks that their resilience has been impressive.

“It’s easy to say this team checked out,” Ganesharatnam said. “They just want the season to be over and to be honest? Sometimes, yeah. It’s true. I think that’s a normal thought process, a normal instinct that kicks in. What this team allows us to do is work actively against that.”

Ganesharatnam said he knows his team wants to compete. He also stated that despite injuries, poor performance and players playing out of position, nobody has complained.

“I’m really happy for them because as much as you grind and grind and you don’t show anything, it’s tough to keep going. It’s good that we got one (set win). It keeps us going and allows us to understand that we’re on the right track,” Ganesharatnam said.

In the first set, Florida State came out the gates dominant. The Seminoles only allowed five kills in that period. Their offense was equally as impressive, scoring at will. By the end of the set, FSU won 25-10.

The second set, however, was a different story. SU came out the gates going back and forth with FSU, eventually taking an early 9-8 lead. But the Seminoles responded by scoring seven unanswered points. Ganesharatnam said tonight, the team showed a different level of “heart, passion, and desire” tonight, coming back from the deficit.

“If we would have lost that second set after a competitive first set, I would have been happy,” Ganesharatnam. “But I’m even happier that we won that second set after we just got killed in the first set. It shows even more about this team and the desire and the heart they have.”

SU made their climb back from down six. Sophomore Raina Hughes played a huge part in the comeback, registering a career-high 15 kills.

With Hughes’ effort, SU went on a 7-0 run as the Orange took a late 23-22 lead.

But with a kill and solo block by FSU’s middle blocker Kiari Robey, the Seminoles regained the lead and forced Syracuse to call one final timeout.

Despite the game in the balance, Greta Schlichter said that the team wasn’t worried or felt pressured at all.

“Honestly thinking back, I would say (there wasn’t pressure) because we just fought back that hard,” Schlichter said. “I think in everyone’s mind it was just one thought; let’s finish this. We’ve came back a lot of times throughout the season and some sets were close and in the end we couldn’t execute in crunch time. I felt like today was different because everyone believed it so hard.”

Out of the timeout, it was first Zharia Harris-Waddy with the block, tying the score at 24. The following score was a service ace by Schlichter. Set point. Finally, Hughes came up big with one final kill. That was a moment that Hughes has wanted for quite some time.

“(It) felt good to come back because I felt like I haven’t had that feeling in a while of getting those types of kills. I contributed in a big way for the team, so I felt like that was rewarding,” Hughes said.

Though the ultimate result was a loss, coach Ganesharatnam wants the focus and excitement of that second set win to translate into more success.

“There’s people that never get this opportunity to be a D1 athlete. If they would get two weeks, if they would have three games, they would kill for it,” Ganesharatnam said. “We have it. So we want to make the most out of it and we want to get better. We want to build on this.”

Published on November 11, 2023 at 12:23 am