With each good look, Syracuse inched closer to breaking through. The Orange, eight months removed from its historic College Cup run, worked the ball over the line amid a scramble in front of the net but missed just wide.

Syracuse had numerous scoring opportunities early on but did not capitalize. Four minutes before halftime, Kenny Lassiter hesitated slightly when a ball found him near the net. He missed wide right. At the 16-minute mark, Johannes Pieles’ free kick ringed off the crossbar. Oyvind Alseth missed on back-to-back shots in a three-minute span.

But each shot helped the Orange creep closer to a conversion.

Goals from Chris Nanco and Liam Callahan in a nine-minute span out of the halftime break powered No. 6 Syracuse (1-0) to a 3-0 win over Massachusetts (0-1) in front of a capacity crowd Friday night at SU Soccer Stadium. A Lassiter insurance goal in the 80th minute put the game out of reach and helped SU cruise to the win column to open the 2016 campaign.

“We were starting to get a little frustrated in the first half, so that first goal from Chris (Nanco) was an important one,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said, “because then that opens the game up … that goal kind of took some of that steam out of them.”

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A couple of SU players glanced down at the grass after another decent look on goal didn’t equal a conversion late in the opening half. Two players wiped sweat off their faces and began a slow trot toward midfield.

“We’ve gotta play!” McIntyre yelled before the half, the game still scoreless. “Move!”

Despite coming up empty in the first half, SU still played with verve and pace all game. The decisive goal came from Nanco in the 49th minute. The senior forward received a long ball from Louis Cross, dribbled past a Minutemen defender with a hesitation move, side-stepped a man and snuck a hard shot past diving UMass goalie Jorge Becerra on the low right side of the goal. Nine minutes later, Callahan followed to make it 2-0 and all but over.

“You could tell when Nanco put that in there was a hype change in the team,” said Callahan, a redshirt senior. “… When you get those, it was a big confidence booster.”

Callahan seemed to be a beneficiary of that confidence boost. The midfielder saw an open space in the middle and beat his man. With Pieles up top, Callahan looked for a dish. Pieles faked a shot then snuck a pass to the middle for Callahan to shoot in the bottom corner of the net.

The Minutemen, meanwhile, lacked any real offensive firepower. In the first half, SU outshot UMass, 11-2, commanding possession throughout the rest of the way: the Orange tallied 21 total shots compared to UMass’ three.

Yet the Minutemen stayed in it, deploring high-press looks from the opening minutes. Before the game and at halftime, McIntyre addressed the Minutemen’s defensive scheme. The Orange had planned to simply play through it. When McInytre walked into the locker room at halftime, he told his players to stay patient but still play with the urgency that got it 11 shots in the half.

UMass opened the second half with a press the same way it did in the first. But eventually, the visitors would have to pull back, and that’s just what happened.

“They gave us a bit of a game in the first half with that high press,” Callahan said. “It took us a little while to adjust to it.”

Published on August 26, 2016 at 9:14 pm

Contact Matthew: [email protected] | @MatthewGut21