In 2016, then-Syracuse players Liz Sack, Annalena Ulbrich and Regan Spencer sat in the locker room on Tuesday afternoons, trying to psych themselves up before the toughest practice of the week.

They played music. They talked one another up. Anything to prepare themselves for the next four hours.

Head coach Ange Bradley has a special name for this day: “Competition Tuesday.”

Competition Tuesdays are special practices that Bradley has run since she began coaching. They’ve been a staple in Bradley’s 12-year tenure at Syracuse, and SU’s dedication to fitness has helped turn the Orange into a perennial NCAA tournament team. Syracuse (6-3, 0-2 Atlantic Coast) is 3-1 in overtime games this season, erasing halftime deficits in all three wins. The Orange have outscored their opponents 12-4 in the second half and overtime. That’s partly due to fitness and a key focus in practice, especially on Tuesdays.

Syracuse plays all of its regular season games this season on either Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Bradley usually gives her team off on Mondays.

“We’re the only ones on campus who loved Mondays,” Spencer said.

It’s followed by the toughest day of practice. Syracuse sometimes spends up to four hours practicing, either on the turf or in the weightroom. Since Tuesday is at least three full days away from the next game, Bradley pushes her team to the limit.

“We compete every time we step on the field,” Bradley said. “It’s a competitive environment, so that’s what we do in practice.”

After a warm up stretch and jog, the Orange break into a game known as “Queen’s Court,” or “Queen of the Court.” It’s a 1-on-1 drill that takes place within a small square. The pair battles it out for two minutes, trying to score the most points by getting the ball past the opponent and across the makeshift goal line. Once the two minutes are up, the winners move up one court and the losers move down one.

Eventually, the coaches start to take courts away. The eliminated players move aside to do conditioning drills, former player Kim Wingert said. The earlier a player gets eliminated, the more additional running they have to do.

“We’re always constantly competing,” freshman Tess Queen said. “You should always feel some punishment even if it’s not given. There definitely is consequences but you should mostly feel that internally.”

One by one, courts are removed, until one court remains. The goal is to make it to “Queen’s Court,” where there are actual cages as goals.

Wingert said that competition was so intense on Tuesdays that the players regularly referred to the day as “terrible Tuesdays.” She said she once broke her nose during practice.

After Queen’s Court, Bradley breaks the team into more team-oriented drills, all revolving around competition. Another of Bradley’s more common drills is known as the “Gladiator Drill,” Spencer said. The Orange attackers must dribble through a series of cones and attempt to score on the defense. It’s a drill that focuses on stick work, finishing and defending.

“We’re always constantly competing,” Queen said. “You get put in the situation to compete and see whoever is going to rise to the occasion.”

SU tailors the rest of the practice around its next opponent. Sometimes that means an emphasis on defense, stick control or film study.

The Orange rotates through multiple group drills throughout the remainder of practice, and sometimes finishes with a lift inside, freshman Kira Wimbert said. One frequent activity is a 3-on-5 attacking drill.

Bradley centers her fitness testing around 2-kilometer run times and the beep test which requires players to run back and forth from line to line before a beep sounds. The challenge is that with each set, the time in between the beeps is shorter, forcing the players to run faster each time.

After up to four hours on the turf, the players take ice baths and use foam rollers. Anything to help them recover. The next day, Wednesday, might not be “Competition Tuesday,” but the intra-team rivalries continue.

The battles continue to gameday, when the Orange partners up during pregame. Two players line up about five feet from one another, with two small cones in between them. As a stick handling drill, the two players try to pass the ball back and forth quickly, without losing control of the ball.

Bradley and her assistants watch each pair closely. After about a minute, Bradley picks a winning pair. The winning pair celebrates for a few seconds, until a second round of the same drill begins.

“The reward is winning,” Bradley said, “and the reward for losing is learning how to win.”

Published on September 25, 2018 at 11:55 pm

Contact Anthony: amdabbun@syr.edu | @AnthonyDabbundo