As the Orange walked off the court for the last time this weekend following a straight-sets defeat to Colorado, head coach Leonid Yelin emphasized the learning process with his young team.

“It’s just a learning process,” Yelin said. “Very painful for everyone. There are just no other ways to be better other than learning.”

The Orange’s youth showed this weekend in the Candlewood Suites Invitational as it lost three of the four matches in the tournament. Syracuse (1-5) lost to Stony Brook (3-4) 3-2 and beat Rutgers (3-4) 3-2 on Friday, and lost to Oakland (4-3) 3-1 and Colorado (5-1) 3-0 on Saturday.

Yelin said he wants to see his players improving each match. He cited the lack of effort on improvement in his surprising decision to sit the second-leading point scorer on the team, Silvi Uattara, in the last match in the tournament against Colorado.

Uattara also played significantly less than she usually does in the match against Rutgers on Friday.

“I’m happy with some players who are improving, who are learning from mistakes.” Yelin said. “As you saw it, Silvi didn’t play today because I said, ‘If you’re not learning from your mistakes it doesn’t even matter how strong you are.’”

In the match against Colorado that the Orange played without Uattara, several of the players were happy with the way the team played, even though it was the only match they played all weekend in which they failed to win a set.

“We had a lot of energy,” freshman setter Erica Handley, who led the team with 35 assists against Colorado, said. “It was our most positive attitude I think on the court. We weren’t as tense as we normally are. We were just playing our game, just doing the best of our capabilities.”

The Orange came very close to stealing the first set from the Buffaloes, as a kill from sophomore Gosia Wlaszczuk brought the set to 24-22 Colorado. But that would be as close as SU would get. Colorado closed out the next point.

The Orange fought hard for the rest of the match. Leading scorer Nicolette Serratore brought the Orange within 23-19 on a strong kill, but Colorado won the next two points and took the third set 25-20.

Yelin believes playing teams like Colorado can only help his young team learn.

“When you lose to a team who you know (is ranked) much higher, it never hurts you,” Yelin said. “You’re not losing confidence. You’re losing confidence if you lose to a team you know you’re better than.”

By the end of the weekend, Syracuse was playing lethargic. Four games in two days had clearly taken a toll, but Wlaszczuk doesn’t look to that as an excuse.

“Tired is not excuse. Everyone is tired in this tournament,” Wlaszczuk said. “I would not say we played bad because we are tired. They also played two games yesterday. We just cannot play the way we are practicing I don’t know why.”

After a 1-5 start to the season, Yelin emphasized correcting the errors the team is making, but also strengthening the areas they are having success in. SU’s five-set loss early in the day to Stony Brook served as the “learning lesson” Yelin hoped it would be and Syracuse turned around to beat Rutgers.

“Most of the time, we are trying to show them what they did good,” Yelin said. “Now, you have to figure out why you did this, why it was clicking in this situation, and not that situation.”

Published on September 9, 2013 at 12:44 am

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