She still receives them. The tugs on the back of her Syracuse jersey by her opponents. The shoulders and the stick pokes that nag her.

Shelby Schraden, sophomore forward on the No. 3 Syracuse field hockey team, can feel them. They can cause her to trip, hurled by her own momentum, onto the turf.

But when Schraden is knocked to the ground now, she gets up immediately and makes a difference. In her second year, the forward has tallied the second-most game-winning goals (three) for Syracuse (18-1, 5-1 Big East).

‘She’s comfortable on the field now,’ senior forward Brittany Shannon said.

Confidence can win a game, SU head coach Ange Bradley said. But as a freshman, Schraden’s wasn’t always there. Schraden didn’t know where she stood on the team, confused whether she was ‘up or down’ on Bradley’s lineup.

And it carried onto the field. She was always attacking more than she should or defending when she needed to attack. Pushed by defending goalies in her opponent’s arc because of her size, Schraden required balance, Bradley said.

When a forward, like Schraden, breaks down in the opponent’s arc, precious opportunities to score are squandered. It gives the other team time to collect its defensive focus and allows it to counter an attack. It gives the opponent a chance to win.

So Schraden watched film and practiced her skill work – her hands, her passes, her shots.

‘I knew that this season we’re going to have a lot more competitions for positions, and a lot of great younger players,’ Schraden said. ‘It was going to be harder than ever. I had to go all out, or I wouldn’t be a part of this team.’

Bradley held the starting lineup from the Orange until the first match of this season against No. 8 Old Dominion. Before the game, in a locker room an hour away from her home in Allentown, Pa., Schraden saw her name written in Bradley’s handwriting.

‘On the visiting locker room board she put it up and we walked in (and I) saw my name,’ Schraden said. ‘(I) took a sigh of relief, and I knew what I was doing was right. I just had to keep doing it. I was proud of myself, because I knew how much I had improved myself from last fall to spring.’

Schraden has started 18 games this season, and has more shots on goal, more assists and more goals than she had last year.

‘This year I think I came in knowing who I was as a player and a person,’ Schraden said. ‘And my confidence is showing. My confidence has improved.’

The ‘little’ athlete will stand in front of goalies who push her. She’s spunky, feisty and funny, Bradley said. The most defensive of her forwards in the Orange lineup, Schraden can pressure and win the ball. She’s found her balance.

‘She’s not afraid to let it out or to slide on the turf to get that goal,’ Shannon said.

Recruited by former SU head coach Kathleen Parker, the player from Allentown has matured. There isn’t confusion about positions like there was in seventh grade when Schraden would just ‘run around to the ball.’

Schraden first met Bradley at the Carrier Dome for an SU basketball game. They returned to Bradley’s office, where the head coach gave her the choice whether she would like to stay with Bradley or leave. She belonged here, Schraden responded.

Her opportunity to win a Big East Championship, one of the reasons Schraden stayed, will come this weekend as the top-seeded Orange faces Providence in the first round Saturday.

‘At this point of the season I am who I am,’ Schraden said. ‘I just have to keep putting up a fight.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on November 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm