Men's soccer

Syracuse reflects on seniors’ influence on program, end of careers after Georgetown loss

Courtesy of Georgetown Athletics

Georgetown players celebrate beating Syracuse in the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament on Sunday. It was the second time in three seasons that the Hoyas have ended SU's season in Washington in the sweet 16.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jordan Murrell sat alone in the middle of the field. Nick Perea had a blank stare on his face, not removing his cleats or shin guards. Matt Stith — who never played a regular-season game — was sobbing.

Those three are part of a senior class that won just three games its freshman year, but then recorded double-digit win totals each of the next three seasons.

Ninth-seeded Syracuse was unable to tie a program record and get its 17th win on Sunday in a 2-1 loss to No. 8 seed Georgetown that ended the Orange’s season in the third round of the NCAA tournament. SU head coach Ian McIntyre emphasized the distance the seniors have brought the program over their four years. Four of the nine seniors have one year of eligibility left, but regardless of who stays, they’ll never get to play as a full group again.

“It’s basically what all the emotion is after the game,” senior defender Skylar Thomas said. “You’ll never play with these guys again. Mac will never be my coach again.”

Thomas will likely be taken in the Major League Soccer Draft. So too will Murrell. But for the likes of senior defender Chris Makowski and the junior Stith — who will leave, SU Athletics said — their soccer careers will be defined by how they helped bring Syracuse out of the depths of college soccer.



All season, the Orange’s youth has played a large role in SU being mentioned with the nation’s best and even garnering the country’s No. 1 rank for two weeks. It’s the seniors, though, who were around for an abysmal 2011 season and got to bring Syracuse to the other end of the spectrum in 2014.

“It’s an important group that has set the bar pretty high and set the table from which we can build,” McIntyre said.

This year, Perea was tied for second on the team with five goals after only scoring that many in his first three seasons combined. Murrell led the team with seven assists. Thomas rescued SU with game-winning goals against then-No. 2 Virginia on Sept. 27 and in overtime against Boston College on Oct. 31.

Whether it was on the stat sheet, Thomas and Murrell leading vocally from the back line or the seniors setting an example for the underclassmen, it’s certainly not a class that will be defined by an overtime loss to the Hoyas in the NCAA tournament round of 16.

“All I said to the boys was literally, ‘I love you man,’” junior midfielder Juuso Pasanen said. “You can’t even say anything else. I don’t know what’s going through their minds.”

McIntyre will talk with each one individually sometime in the next couple days, as he said he always does.

There won’t be any emotional speeches, though. McIntyre said the seniors already know how much he appreciates what they’ve done for the program.

“Our relationship with our seniors is defined over four years,” McIntyre said. “An end of a season, but the end of four-year careers as well.”





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