Nicole Levy couldn’t make anything happen. After another failed offensive set against Duke in an eventual 17-10 loss, the junior gestured to SU head coach Gary Gait on the sideline and patted herself on the chest as if to say, “my bad.” When the whistle blew, the two continued to converse as the Orange tried to get one of its top scorers going.

Levy had predicted this. Following No. 16 Syracuse’s (8-6, 0-4 Atlantic Coast) explosion in its first three games, when SU had the nation’s top-ranked offense and was enjoying contributions throughout its lineup, Levy stood firm in ensuring the offense would encounter its struggles. She knew the Orange had a tough stretch ahead, and the recipe for continued offensive dominance would soon have to change.

“We were getting some good teams, but… we pulled away,” Levy said on Feb. 20. “It was easy for everybody.”

Eleven games later, the Orange’s offense is mostly dependent on the performance of its two top attacks, Levy and Emily Hawryschuk. The formula is there: When both are on, Syracuse often wins. When one isn’t, Syracuse has struggled. But the individual outputs are sometimes SU’s only chance of winning. Syracuse has struggled to find that balance all season long and, without a win in conference, its top-tier offensive talent is running out of time.

The duo’s best individual performances often coincide with the other’s more lackluster performances — Levy’s reached the four-goal mark just once when Hawryschuk has score more than two goals, and Hawryschuk’s career-best goals (6) and points (8) production came in a game Levy just scored once.

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Opponents figured out the formula before SU did. Against Princeton, the Tigers brought a defensive set Syracuse hadn’t seen thus far this season. But Princeton didn’t even allow Levy to record a shot, marking the first time all season that had happened.

But two days later against Duke, it happened again. In the ensuing games, Levy didn’t record a shot versus the Blue Devils and mustered two the next game against Loyola, where she scored her first goal in three games.

But because of Hawryschuk, the SU offense never went away. Against Loyola, where Levy scored her first goal in three games, Hawryschuk carried Syracuse. Her season-high six goals were capped off by a strike in overtime to give the Orange a much-needed road win. To the untrained eye, Hawryschuk was unstoppable, but Gait put it differently.

“Another team shutting down Nicole Levy,” Gait said. “(Hawryschuk) needed to step up.”

That’s been the problem for SU. Gait noted playing “six on six” — which happens when an opposing player faceguards one of Syracuse’s top offensive threats, taking the attacker and defender out of the game — opens up opportunities for others. But the team can’t perform its best when Levy or Hawryschuk are taken out of the game.

The Orange’s most recent loss to Virginia Tech provided the only outlier as a game where Syracuse lost despite nine goals from its dynamic pair.

Over the course of Syracuse’s most recent offensive struggles, many members of the team have preached chemistry as a prime reason for its low number of goals. Taylor Gait said it’s about knowing what players are doing while on the field.  She referenced knowing where to cut when fellow-midfielder Emily Resnick has the ball because of Resnick’s tendency to dodge right to left.

“It’s just an ongoing thing,” Hawryschuk said of the team’s communication. “No matter how much you do, you could always do more of it.”

The elder Gait said the goal of the season was for the attack group to form chemistry in groups of two. He brought up two names: Levy and Hawryschuk, the Orange’s go-tos. But while the chemistry may be strong, the results remain poor.

After Duke stymied the Orange’s offense and made Levy’s presence disappear, Gait put it into perspective.

“We kind of went back and forth figuring out what was going to work. Unfortunately, she gets the ball, they double her, so she ends up just having to move it,” Gait said after the game. “It’s tough to utilize a player when they’re just going to do that.”

No matter the reason, the Orange has succeeded most when the two put up steady performances. While both players’ individual scoring ranks favorably in the ACC, the Orange remain on the brink of missing the NCAA tournament. If Syracuse doesn’t figure out the balance between its two biggest scoring threats, individual performances may be its last memory of a lost season.

Published on April 11, 2018 at 10:57 pm

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