Home Crowd Energizes Syracuse in Win Over California

By Ryan Croke | @ryancroke_

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A few weeks ago, Syracuse volleyball (11-4, 3-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam asked for more fan support. 

The Orange faithful heard him loud and clear, and they answered that call on Friday night. On Breast Cancer Awareness Night, a packed house at the Women’s Building helped energize the Orange to a 3-1 win over California.

“We can feed off the crowd,” Ganesharatnam said. “They certainly made a difference today. We’re very, very grateful and very thankful, but we worked hard for the last four years to build this.”

“That’s what I was trying to say,” he continued. “[It’s] not just the players on the court and the coaches that are going to build this program. It’s going to be the entire community, the entire region, and everybody that wants to be a part of this can come and help us build this.”

The energy from the crowd was not contained to inside the Women’s Building. Syracuse fans Mike Patteson and Tony DiNicola were holding a tailgate ahead of the match.

“We saw coach’s call to action the other week,” Patteson said. “He wasn’t happy with the attendance. He said that they need to get some noise in this building…so we put it out there, me and Tony…that we were going to throw a tailgate, typically like we do for football, and we’re just going to see what happens.”

“The coach basically was like ‘hey, attendance isn’t great, nobody’s making noise, nobody’s having fun,’” DiNicola added. “[So] we were like ‘hey let’s go tailgate, let’s bring the energy, let’s have some fun tonight. Let’s make this wild.’”

SU can ride the wave of fan support when No. 6 Stanford comes to town on Sunday at 1 p.m.

For coverage of that match and the remainder of the Syracuse volleyball season, follow @ryancroke_ and @CitrusTVSports on Twitter/X.