Audrey Latsko couldn’t hide her frustration.

After the Syracuse field hockey team played perhaps its worst game of the season, losing to lowly Colgate, 1-0, last night at Coyne Field, Latsko wanted the offense to show some support.

‘We have a problem scoring,’ Latsko said. ‘Everyone’s working by themselves.’

No individual Orangewoman is helping Latsko’s cause.

When Colgate’s (5-9) Ashley Schneider tipped in a deflected shot 20 minutes into the second half, Latsko dropped to her knees in disgust.

Forgive Latsko for feeling a little down. She’s allowed 1.05 goals per game, but received little in return from the offense — 1.29 goals per game.

Syracuse (10-7, 2-2 Big East) has returned much of the core from last year’s Big East championship team, including four of the top five scorers.

Kristin Aronowicz, Ann-Marie Guglieri, Meredith Gettel and Michelle Marks totaled 76 points last year. This year, the four have combined for 31 points.

‘We should feel bad about this,’ head coach Kathleen Parker said. ‘We just didn’t play with any heart, and I wasn’t pleased with our performance team-wise.’

Syracuse has had a pair of three-goal games this season, but that’s been its highest single-game output. Last year, SU put together three or more goals nine times, including a 5-1 victory over Colgate.

‘We didn’t come out to play at all,’ Marks said. ‘We stepped on the field expecting to (beat Colgate).’

Now, three days before playing their biggest game of the season, at Connecticut, the Orangewomen are still having trouble converting shots and penalty corners. A win against the Huskies will guarantee a trip to the Big East tournament. A loss could leave Syracuse out of the postseason for the first time.

‘I’m frustrated,’ Parker said. ‘The team’s frustrated. We play well one day and don’t play well the next.’

Two weeks after Syracuse felt it solved its problems with penalty corners by converting a pair against Cornell, it missed all 15 attempts against Colgate.

Things got so bad, the Orangewomen couldn’t even muster a shot on four straight corners because of botched stops.

‘We looked like we had never worked together in the corner unit,’ Parker said. ‘It was just lack of focus.’

And then there were Syracuse’s 18 shots, many of which went wide or straight at Colgate goalkeeper Sara Corcoran, who recorded nine saves.

‘There wasn’t any team chemistry on the field whatsoever,’ Parker said. ‘Whoever had the ball, it was their problem. There wasn’t a lot of help off the ball.’

Nothing went right for SU, which fell to the Raiders for the first time since 1996.

‘We didn’t play hard and Colgate did,” Parker said. “We came out and we showed them no respect.’

Published on October 23, 2002 at 12:00 pm