As has been the case many times this season, Syracuse jumped out to a two-set lead Sunday against Seton Hall. And as has been the case many times this season, the Orange dropped the third set.

But this time, Kelly Morrisroe wouldn’t let her team collapse.

‘Don’t let them do that to us,’ SU’s interim head coach told her team as Syracuse watched the Pirates celebrate following their third-set victory.

While the Orange’s third-set struggles persisted with a pair of third-set losses to Rutgers and Seton Hall, Syracuse straightened out its issues in the fourth set to defeat its Big East opponents. SU earned two 3-1 victories over the Scarlet Knights and the Pirates at the Women’s Building on Friday and Sunday. Syracuse showed mental toughness and played consistently on offense to avoid another set of letdowns.

Morrisroe called her team’s victory over Rutgers the most complete offensive game the Orange has played this season.

In each of the first two sets, the Orange hit over .400 before the third-set issues arose.

Once again, SU dropped the third set before regrouping and climbing back to the .250 hitting clip that Morrisroe and the coaching staff target for each match.

Early in both games, it appeared Syracuse was going to cruise. The Orange’s back-row defense looked every bit as good as it did against the Scarlet Knights, when Ashley Williams had 24 digs and forced Seton Hall into more errors than kills in the 25-12 opening frame.

After a 25-22 win in the second set, SU was in control of the match.

But when Seton Hall came out in the third set, the Pirates had a new strategy. The Pirates attacked SU mentally, emphatically celebrating every point.

The Pirates players on the court and bench all slid to their knees and banged on the floor. Syracuse’s players stayed calm during the Seton Hall celebrations and only quietly nodded their heads after winning a point.

‘We just stay focused on our game plan and our execution of the game plan and basically just blocking out their emotions and just staying focused,’ junior defensive specialist Zoe Guzman said. ‘We just try to block them out in a good way. Not ignore that because it also fires us up.’

The celebratory tactic worked for the Pirates in the third set as Seton Hall won 25-21, but it backfired in the fourth.

‘Our girls can get pretty fired up, namely Sam Hinz,’ Morrisroe said. ‘If you get that girl angry she’s going to do something. … You don’t come across many teams that are like that, and our girls responded really well.’

Syracuse got down big early in the fourth set and trailed by as much as 18-10, but then the Orange’s run began.

After a Syracuse timeout, Morrisroe replaced Laura Homann with Emily Betteridge at middle setter, a change that was big enough to cost the Pirates some momentum.

‘That’s the quarterback of your team, so they’re already thinking, ‘What’s going to be different?” Morrisroe said. ‘By the fourth set, Seton Hall had made all the right adjustments, they knew what we were doing, they knew the tempo of the attack, so they could set up their block.’

With Seton Hall already on its heels, the anger that had been brewing in some of SU’s players was ready to be unleashed.

After cutting the lead to six, Noemie Lefebvre unleashed a monstrous spike that knocked a Seton Hall hitter off balance as part of another Syracuse point. Later in the set, Hinz blocked back-to-back Pirate hits to set up a Nicolette Serratore kill that cut the lead to 21-16. And Syracuse finished the set on a 9-2 run to clinch the victory.

The Orange overcame its third-set struggles and the Seton Hall mind games to put itself in excellent position to qualify for the Big East tournament.

‘This was actually very, very important for us,’ Lefebvre said. ‘This was definitely a must-win for us this year to make our lives a little — I don’t want to say easier because every Big East game is tough, but a little easier.’

dbwilson@syr.edu