Maryland forward Mikias Eticha shook his head in disbelief and jogged slowly back toward the midfield.

Eticha’s recent shot seemed destined for the back of the net, but Syracuse goalkeeper Alex Bono corralled it into his chest. Eticha pulled his jersey to his mouth — chewing away his frustration.

The game remained scoreless.

For 55 minutes, Syracuse (9-6-1, 2-6-1 Atlantic Coast) held No. 12 Maryland’s offense, ranked second in the country, off the score sheet. Terrapins midfielder Dan Metzger scored the game’s lone goal, and Maryland (8-3-5, 5-1-3 ACC) bested Syracuse 1-0 in front of 677 at SU Soccer Stadium on Saturday, but the Orange’s defense was rigid throughout.

“I thought we played well defensively for most of the game. We were even on shots. They just happened to net one,” SU defender Skylar Thomas said. “Maybe a poor defensive mistake by our team, but he hit a good shot into the top corner and we went down 1-0.”

Syracuse started five defenders: Brandon Albert, Chris Makowski, Thomas, Alseth and Murrell. McIntyre said Albert started in place of midfielder Nick Perea because Perea missed the team’s pregame meal.

Maryland features 2012 MAC Hermann Trophy finalist Patrick Mullins and runs a unique centralized offense, so SU outside defenders Jordan Murrell and Oyvind Alseth played more in the midfield, often leaving only three SU defenders back.

“I thought our defenders did very well limiting (Mullins’) chances,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said. “There’s a reason why he’s the top goal scorer in the ACC and there’s a reason why he was voted by his peers as the best player in college soccer last year.

“But that was probably one of his more quiet nights. Having said that, they’re a good enough team that if he doesn’t score, they found a way to win the game.”

The more defense-focused lineup may have been just what the Orange needed against the highly skilled Terrapins. Central defenders Thomas and Makowski were able to keep a focus on Mullins while other areas of the field weren’t jeopardized.
Maryland was mostly forced to shoot from outside the box — easy pickings for Bono.

In the 20th minute, Makowski was beaten by Mullins on a through ball, but recovered in time and sent a return pass to Bono. Minutes later, Mullins split Thomas and Albert, but Thomas recovered and cleared the ball out of the defensive zone.

In the 34th minute, Maryland’s Sunny Jane attempted to send a leading pass to Mullins, but Thomas used his 6-foot-4 frame to lay out and break up the pass. Throughout the match it seemed like wherever Mullins was, so was Thomas. And most of the time, so was Makowski.

Thomas and Mullins fought back and forth late in the first half. Mullins pushed Thomas after the whistle, to which the Syracuse crowd voiced its displeasure.

Early in the second half, Thomas kicked Mullins in the right shin and the forward fell to the ground.

But in such a tightly contested match, one chance and one goal was all the winning team needed.

In the 55th minute, Jane had the ball just outside of the box to the Bono’s left. The forward passed to Metzger above the box in the center of the field, and sent a brilliant strike into the cage — a practically perfect shot that Bono really had no chance of saving.

The goal was only one of two shots Bono had to face for the entire game. The stout Syracuse defense allowed six other shots that weren’t on goal.

“We just tried to stay strong defensively,” Perea said. “Whoever was open we tried to pick them up. If there’s a man next to you, mark them up. We didn’t do anything special, just played Syracuse soccer.”

Published on October 27, 2013 at 1:25 am

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