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Three days after recording just one shot against No. 1 UNC, Syracuse slumped off the field at halftime down three goals against No. 5 Duke. The Orange had recorded only three shots in the first 45 minutes — half-chances that weren’t even close. 

With nothing to lose, head coach Nicky Adams decided to change her formation and add another attacker, shifting from a back-five to a back-four. SU responded by launching eight shots at the Blue Devils net, the most it had recorded in a half to that point in the season.

While the switch didn’t result in any goals, Meghan Root had a penalty saved and Syracuse scored in its next three games. But for the Orange, it was too little too late. The long scoring drought effectively played them out of an Atlantic Coast Conference tournament spot. 

“This team shows us every single game that there are qualities and pieces of them that are really good, but then they take it away and show us something different,” Adams said after the Duke game. 

Syracuse (1-7, 1-7 ACC) cemented its worst season in program history by scoring just five goals in eight games, three of which came in the final game of the season against Virginia. The Orange had gone scoreless through their first five contests, where they were outshot 31 to 130 and sent 60 shots toward the opposition the entire year — with a season-high 12 against Miami in its singular win of the season. Only 33 of those 60 shots were on target, though, and of those 33 only five hit the back of the net.

“I definitely think that we’ve had opportunities to finish,” Telly Vunipola said on Oct 13.

SU’s offensive struggles stemmed from a lack of production from its forwards, who were outscored by Jenna Tivnan and Shannon Aviza. The Syracuse defense concluded the shortened 2020 season with nine points from Lindsey Brick, Tivnan and Aviza, compared to five from Root, Hannah Pilley and Kate Hostage. Tivnan was also the only SU player to finish the season with double-digit shots. 

Root had a tap-in goal against Boston College and Hostage’s penalty was essentially the last kick of Syracuse’s season, but besides that, the forwards’ contributions were minimal. 

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Hold-up play had been a problem for Syracuse for much of the season. On those long balls, SU usually looked to target the 5-foot-10 Pilley. Against UNC, she was the only Syracuse player to have a touch in the opposing half for almost a quarter of the game. 

“Just having the confidence to keep possession and play out of the back,” midfielder Olivia Erlbeck said on Oct. 22. “Instead of kicking the ball and then having one forward trying to hold the ball, and then the other team just gets the ball back and goes back at us.”

Pilley’s brief success came against BC, where she played alongside fellow attacker Root in a two striker set. The taller Pilley was able to knock down balls for the smaller and faster Root to run onto. Though that worked against Boston College, Syracuse had trouble against tall, quick ACC defenders, like those on Duke and UNC.

“What’s happening in the past is that we’re playing target players, and we’re playing almost hero-balls to get in,” Adams said after the Duke game. “We’re not as athletic, currently, as other ACC teams.”

Halfway through its season, right after the Duke game, Syracuse hit a crossroads. Sitting at 0-5, it needed to make a switch. Facing Boston College, a team also searching for its first win, Syracuse scored but eventually lost 3-1. 

A week later, the same thing happened, but this time a Tivnan header helped Syracuse pick up its first win of the season over winless Miami. In SU’s final game, the stakes were lower than before with Syracuse already out of the ACC tournament, and the offensive surge that SU was looking for all season finally appeared. 

“We can play. We can connect passes. We can have an offense,” Aviza said after the UVA game. “Something we just need to work on is the consistency of that, and that’s something we should definitely harp on in the offseason.”

In two years at SU, Adams is yet to complete a full offseason with the team. She arrived in March for her first year, and the most recent offseason was cut short by COVID-19, with players sent home before spring training began. 

As Adams continues to rebuild Syracuse’s program, she said she hopes to recruit more players that fit her play style — one that emphasizes possession. It’s a shift from what SU currently plays. Instead of bypassing midfielders and playing long balls to strikers, she wants to take advantage of possession by playing through the midfield. 

“(I’m) trying to find those players that can be very attacking minded, and I’m not just talking our forwards,” Adams said. “I want outside backs that can get forward and fly and make us better in the final third — that’s what we’re gonna look for.”

Published on November 4, 2020 at 11:02 pm

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