There was a moment in the first set of Syracuse’s game against Buffalo when the Orange’s points suddenly stopped. SU, which had been up 23-18 and ready to end the set just moments before, suddenly found itself tied at 23 points apiece with the Bulls.

In a span of five minutes, Buffalo had rattled off five straight points. They were now the team looking to grab the first set and set the tone of the match.

But they didn’t.

Instead, the Orange came up with three crucial points, shifting momentum back in its favor. SU took that set, the first of three consecutive set victories, in a 3-0 win in the team’s home opener against its upstate rivals Tuesday.

‘The job’s not done until the last point’s scored,’ assistant coach Carol LaMarche said. ‘We knew that they weren’t going to let it happen again.’

And they didn’t.

The offense that was so balanced in the team’s 7-0 start to the season was at it again, with four players contributing at least six kills.

The usual suspects of Hayley Todd, Mindy Stanislovaitis and Noemie Lefebvre had 27 kills. But they were not the only offensive standouts. Freshman Lindsay McCabe had six kills in the offensive attack, too.

Laura Homann ran the offense with 33 assists, more than double of any Buffalo player.

‘We have a strong offense all the way across the board,’ McCabe said. ‘It’s definitely to our advantage, and I feel we attack well from everywhere.’

Not be outdone, the defense showed it has as much firepower as the offense. With Ashley Williams in her first season as the libero, the team has been figuring out where they need to set up and be on the court.

‘Everybody’s doing their job so far, and we can make adjustments when we need to,’ LaMarche said of the defense.

But despite the defense’s improvement, it’s the ‘balanced’ offense that continues to get rave reviews from the players and coaches who put it on full display in Tuesday’s match.

In years past, the offense ran through one player — Sarah Morton.

This year, the opposite is true.

‘This year’s been a little different than the past couple years in that we have five strong offensive players,’ Stanislovaitis said. ‘These past couple years, we’ve had one person that rules the game. It’s been great in that we’re spreading out our blocks. It’s really been helping.’

The team needed its balanced offense against an inferior, but pesky, Buffalo team that refused to back down.

Whenever it seemed as if SU was pulling away, Buffalo would make a mini-run to bring the game close again.

At one point in the second game, Mindy Stanislovaitis put up a kill to give the Orange a comfortable 18-14 lead. Buffalo got it back to 18-17. But SU didn’t buckle, ending the game on a 7-4 run to close out a victory.

And each time Buffalo had a run, SU would find a way to pull away. The final three points it scored in the first set is a testament to its resilience. It foreshadowed what was to come of the team.

‘Sometimes you’re just trying and trying, and nothing really seems to work,’ Lefebvre said of the situation in the first set. ‘I think we just wanted it real bad. And this blocking point was at the right time, when we really needed that. And just to get that momentum back and finish the game strong (was important). You just have to keep pushing.’

As important as the defense is, the heart of this team — not just in Tuesday’s match, but also in its 8-0 start to the season — has been its offense.

And against Buffalo, the offense did not let down.

‘We did what we had to do in order to win the game,’ Lefebvre said. ‘I think we were consistent in our offense, and that’s why we won the game.’

rnmarcus@syr.edu

Published on September 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Rachel: rnmarcus@syr.edu