When Syracuse men’s soccer coach Dean Foti was piecing together his 2007 schedule two years ago, he thought he might be making a mistake by playing only one game from Oct. 1-12. Maybe the lack of action would have a negative affect on his team.

Ultimately, Foti decided against adding another game. Now that the time is upon him, he knows he made the right choice. The Orange will take a much-needed break before taking on Rutgers on Sunday at 5 p.m. in Piscataway, N.J.

The Syracuse men’s soccer team limped into its current scheduling lull, losing its final three games after going unbeaten through its first seven. In those three games – two of which were against top-five teams – the Orange recorded only one goal while falling to 1-3 in the Big East and to the bottom of the red division standings. After watching the schedule take a toll on his team, Foti is looking forward to the break.

‘Now that we’re here, I’m happy that we have it,’ Foti said. ‘And I’m happy that we don’t have a midweek game next week either because having one game in 14 days…allows us to get a lot of work done in training, it allows us to get healthy, and it allows us to recharge our battery. And we’re looking forward to doing that.’

Every season, each Big East team is forced to play two weekends with games on Friday and Sunday. This year, Syracuse’s two hectic weekends were scheduled back to back at the beginning of the season. To get his team prepared, Foti scheduled two early tournaments with similar weekend schedules in an attempt to give his team experience with the quick turnarounds.

What resulted was a stretch of 10 games in 31 days. In hindsight, Foti said he may have overbooked his team. But overall, according to Foti, college soccer teams play far too often, and over-scheduling is often unavoidable.

‘Most places in the world, they play one game a week,’ Foti said. ‘We play two in three days. Like we’re the only idiots in the world that play that much soccer in a short period of time. College soccer is not real proud of that fact, I can tell you that. It favors the deeper teams obviously, but it’s still a tough thing to do.’

The Orange’s depth during the opening stretch was challenged by nagging injuries and general fatigue. Four starters – Kyle Hall, Luis Martinez, Karol Wasielewski and James Goodwin – missed game time due to injury over the weekend.

The scheduling problem was compounded by the fact that seven of the 10 games were played on the road, a situation that can present a number of problems, including travel fatigue.

‘Road games, it’s a whole mental factor because you’re not sleeping in your own bed, you’re on the bus, it’s tiring,’ Hall said. ‘So you really have to be more prepared for the game.’

The fatigue factor may have especially come into play for the forwards, particularly Hall and Hansen Woodruff, who rely more on speed than on set plays to score goals. The duo has accounted for more than 70 percent of the scoring. But without their legs under them, and with Hall suffering from a nagging ankle injury, Hall and Woodruff attempted only two shots in the last two games combined.

The Orange now has the luxury of 16 days with only two games before embarking on the home stretch of its season: six games in 18 days. Foti said that his team will be the one with the advantage in endurance for a change. During the break, Foti said he won’t make any major changes. Hall described it as a time for the team to ‘refine.’

‘Everything’s there, it’s just we weren’t mentally or physically sharp as we normally are, and that let us down,’ Hall said. ‘So I think this week and the next coming week is to refine what we already know and put it into practice.’

Defenseman Brad Peetoom stressed the importance of using the time to get back into the Big East hunt. The senior captain watched his team go from its best start in 20 years to the Big East basement in the matter of a few days. But nonetheless, he and his teammates still think they can play with anyone.

‘We go from being the top of our division, a weekend goes by, and you’re at the bottom,’ Peetoom said. ‘So obviously, we need to get a couple of W’s and keep the wins going like we did at the beginning of the season and get back on track.’

Published on October 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm