Andreas Jenssen bent over and crouched in front of the North Carolina State goal line with his hands on his head. He recoiled and shook his head as he jogged back into play.

The freshman was just a few feet away from his first collegiate goal. Midfielder Oyvind Alseth juked out a defender with a fake kick and hop to the right before sending the ball to a crashing Jenssen. He tapped it between the posts, but the goalkeeper made a diving save.

Though he couldn’t earn his first career goal, Jenssen generated a slew of chances while starting in place of an injured Korab Syla. He made defensive stops, created offense with key passes from the midfield and was a constant nuisance for the Wolfpack before exiting with an apparent hip injury with 20 minutes left in the game. Jenssen’s play helped No. 7 seed Syracuse (11-5-2, 3-4-1 Atlantic Coast) beat No. 10 seed N.C. State (8-6-3, 1-5-3), 2-0, at SU Soccer Stadium in the first round of the ACC tournament on Wednesday night.

The Orange will face No. 2 seed North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.

“He had a calming influence on us,” head coach Ian McIntyre said of Jenssen. “He can connect passes and against this N.C. state team we’re trying to find pockets where we can overload.”

Prior to the game, Syla ran approximately 20-yard sprints, but came up tugging at his leg each time. Jenssen took the field with the starters for the second time in three games, but for only the third time all season.

On one play, he misjudged a pass in front of him and had to jab at it with his right foot at the last second. He fell to one knee while poking the ball to Alseth.

Two slide tackles on separate occasions created offensive breaks for the Orange, too.

“He covers a lot of ground, which gives me a little bit more freedom,” midfielder Julian Buescher said, adding that Jenssen seemed to be making more plays than in previous games.

Just minutes after his near miss midway through the first half, he blasted a loose ball a few yards to the right of the net, nearly hitting a ball boy in the head.

Unlike games in the past, McIntyre and the Orange players weren’t yelling at Jenssen to get in position or mark a player streaking through the midfield that he left undefended.

McIntyre jokingly describes Jenssen as “5-foot-9 in high heels,” but his small stature didn’t prevent the midfielder from consistently using his body to draw fouls and shield opponents from the ball. His head coach called him a warrior for his efforts, while forward Chris Nanco described him as a little bugger.

“He was in the right spots,” Nanco said. “You don’t really see the little guys running around like that.”

After a few back-and-forth fouls between Jenssen and N.C. State’s Julius Duchscherer, Jenssen earned his first yellow card for pushing Duchscherer to the ground. His third scolding from a referee came when he jumped on top of an N.C. State player trying for a header and landed on his side.

Several minutes later, Jenssen seemed to be hobbling slightly and McIntyre yelled at him to get on the ground.

After a visit from the trainer, Jenssen hobbled to the sideline with his hand on his left hip — wincing with several steps.

“When he went off we lost a little impetus on the ball,” McIntyre said.

He spent the next 19 minutes jogging down the sideline, swinging his left leg and even laying on his back for a trainer to work on him. With 12 minutes left he donned a green pinnie as if he was ready to be subbed back in, but with a minute and a half to go, he swapped the pinnie for an orange team pullover and sat down.

Jenssen’s night ended early and he wasn’t able to net his first collegiate goal, but the midfielder’s efforts were enough to help the Orange advance to the second round of the ACC tournament.

“That’s all that we can ask for from him,” Nanco said.

Published on November 4, 2015 at 11:10 pm

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