Syracuse missed eight serves against Florida State on Saturday. One strike fell short of the net entirely. Another smacked off the back of outside hitter Gosia Wlaszczuk’s head.

“It’s a mental development,” SU head coach Leonid Yelin said. “It’s a dark part of a human being. We know everyone else better than ourselves. This is the hardest part. This takes so much more time to develop this.”

Syracuse (5-9, 0-2 Atlantic Coast) heads into this weekend’s matches against No. 11 North Carolina (13-0, 2-0) and North Carolina State (10-4, 1-1) looking to fix a problem that has haunted it all season long: its inability to stay focused. The Orange’s repeated mental errors did not go away this past weekend when it lost to Florida State and Miami, both 3-1.

Yelin believes that everyone has a gift at doing something, and those who have developed that mental toughness to stay focused for a long period of time that are the most successful.

He talked about NBA players such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, who have shown to not only be gifted at playing basketball, but to also have mental toughness during a game.

“If people didn’t know who Kobe Bryant was, they would never say on the warm-up he is the best player, based off athletics,” Yelin said. “But the combination of athleticism, skills and mental toughness; He is able to focus and concentrate much longer than others and not cut down in a stress situation in a sport with stress situations.”

Yelin believes that some people just have this mental toughness, some people need to develop it and some just will never have it.

For his team, Yelin believes that the background these players enter college with has a lot to do with the mental toughness they come in with and how long that fortitude takes to develop. Those who attend more competitive high schools have to compete harder in practice to keep their starting spot.

He believes this is a reason why many of his players have yet to develop that mental toughness required to win against the best teams.

“You have to push yourself or you will lose your spot,” Yelin said. “You work every day to stay strong to come strong and focused.

“There’s a lot of kids who are here, they didn’t come from those problems I’m talking about. They all have size, they’re good athletes, but they did not go through what I said. So we are going through this now. The good thing is we only have one senior, so as we’re going we’re not losing these players.”
According to junior captain Nicolette Serratore, avoiding mental lapses is something Syracuse has worked on throughout the year. The team plays a lot of six-on-six scrimmages in practice with punishments for those who mess up, often push-ups or laps around the gym.

This keeps constant pressure on the players in practice so they can learn how to stay focused for an entire match.

“We keep score and there’s always like punishments for the losing team and stuff like that,” Serratore said, “which just gives you that extra motivation and pressure to win the game.”

One of the team’s most effective outside hitters, Silvi Uattara, has been one of several players who have struggled to keep consistent play up throughout the entirety of a match. Uattara struggled so much so that she was benched for a match earlier this year.

She said she tries to imagine herself in the game during the team’s practices so she can be mentally tougher in the team’s matches.

“We’re trying to stay stronger in the practices, imagining ourselves in the game situations,” Uattara said. “That’s how I’m doing it. That’s how I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for the game situations.”

Published on October 3, 2013 at 1:07 am

Contact Ryan: rlraigro@syr.edu