Kailah Kempney didn’t feel Syracuse was at its best Thursday against Notre Dame.

The freshman scored five goals and the Orange came away with a 16-10 victory over the No. 6 Fighting Irish, but Kempney wasn’t satisfied.

‘We’re proud of the win, but it wasn’t a great win,’ the freshman attack said in a phone interview Thursday. ‘We know we could have done a lot better. We had a lot of mistakes.’

No. 3 Syracuse (7-2, 2-0 Big East) will aim to fix those mistakes as it continues a grueling stretch of three games in five days. The Orange will play its second game in that span on Saturday at 1 p.m. when it takes on Rutgers (7-4, 2-1) in the Carrier Dome. SU caps off the five-day challenge against Dartmouth on Monday.

The Orange has endured some challenging weeks so far this season, playing two games in four days three times already. The first time, SU dropped both games to then-No. 6 Virginia and No. 1 Northwestern in late February. Three days after losing to the Wildcats, the Orange edged then-No. 5 Florida in double overtime. And in March, Syracuse beat then-No. 4 Maryland and then-No. 20 Towson in a four-day stretch.

The three-game stretch provides challenges for the Orange to remain sharp. Still, despite being the most difficult stretch in terms of frequency of games, SU head coach Gary Gait doesn’t feel it is the toughest Syracuse has faced this season.

The Orange opened the season with five games against top-12 teams including three straight against teams in the top-five. Gait said facing that high level of competition in the Orange’s brutal early-season schedule was his team’s biggest test thus far.

‘There were top-five teams we were facing back-to-back-to-back, three in a row and that was the toughest stretch of maybe any team in the country so far,’ Gait said. ‘Going from Northwestern to Florida to Maryland, that was a tough, tough stretch.’

But SU attack Katie Webster said this series of games is just as difficult.

And Webster said those first five games against top-five teams helped prepare Syracuse for anything it faces this season, including these three games.

‘This stretch is going to be probably just as difficult,’ Webster said. ‘When we played the tougher teams we didn’t play as much. Still, these next two teams are very good and we’ve got to play with them and not get tired.’

Syracuse has taken some unique steps to get ready for each game. With only one day off between games, the Orange has had to prepare a little for Notre Dame, Rutgers and Dartmouth.

On Friday, SU will focus its preparation on Rutgers, watching some film of the Scarlet Knights. The Orange will also have a practice, though Webster doesn’t expect it to be overly intense as the team tries to stay fresh.

And that could be good for Kempney. Even after scoring five goals against the Fighting Irish, the attack is still recovering from a knee injury suffered against the Wildcats on Feb. 29.

Kempney said Thursday she still isn’t 100 percent, but the freshman is eager to get back on the field Saturday to help SU extend its six-game winning streak. The Orange’s game against Rutgers serves as a chance for the team to get better.

‘Having a game on Saturday just gives us an opportunity to get back on track and get back to where we were and fix all those little mistakes that we made tonight,’ Kempney said.

dbwilson@syr.edu