The Syracuse field hockey players had heard the rumors, but this was something the team needed to witness to believe.

As the players sat around, eating their breakfast in the hotel lobby, they noticed something unusual on the television screen.

Junior Emma Russell, their captain, was on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays scoring a goal.

“We were all downstairs in the hotel lobby and we were all just like, ‘What?’” head coach Ange Bradley said. “We were all around and we watched it and were all like, ‘Yeah!’ It was cool. It was really fun.”

On the goal featured on SportsCenter, junior Alyssa Manley found Russell just outside of the circle. Russell spun away from a defender to get into the circle, then smacked a shot into the back corner of the net, falling to her left as she followed through.

It was the highlight of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, which despite Russell’s five goals, the Orange (18-5) didn’t win.  But her dominance leading the team to the finals of that tournament gave a young SU team the confidence it needed heading into Sunday’s national championship game in College Park, Maryland at 1 p.m.

There, fourth-seeded SU faces a third-seeded Connecticut (19-3) team with a first-ever national championship for a Syracuse women’s team on the line.

According to her teammates, Russell has had success because of her ability to get the offense flowing and to get the ball into the circle where a player must be for a shot to count.

“She’s definitely great with the forward line. She gets a lot of stuff moving,” freshman Lies Lagerweij said. “She definitely gets the ball into the circle a lot, gets a lot of shots off.”

While Russell’s on-the-field play in the ACC tournament was important in giving her 10 freshmen teammates much needed postseason experience, her work off the field as a leader to her teammates has as much, if not more, to do with the Orange’s final four run.

As Lagerweij struggled to get on the field for most of the first half of the season due to injuries, Russell and the other veterans on the team didn’t allow Lagerweij to lose focus as they continually stood by her and the other freshmen’s sides and encouraged them.

Lagerweij ended up scoring a goal on Sunday in the tournament, and freshmen had a hand in three of the five tournament goals scored.

While she and her young teammates were struggling to get through the grueling 2k fitness test during the season, Russell and the other leaders on the team made sure they got through it, Lagerweij said.

“Most of all, they are great team players,” Lagerweij said. “They push us on and off the field. They literally pulled us through our 2k fitness test. They do everything for us and we just want to give everything to the end of the season.”

Bradley said it is the character traits Russell exhibits that makes her the perfect leader for this team. She has a lot of compassion, but she also expects and demands the best effort from her teammates, she said.

It’s what’s made her a teammate to these players.

“Emma is just a really compassionate person,” Bradley said. “She’s a competitor. She’s a really good leader. She cares about people and comforts them, and also encourages them. She’s a really good teammate.”

Published on November 23, 2014 at 11:16 am

Contact Ryan: rlraigro@syr.edu