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With Syracuse already frustrated by an early own goal and an impenetrable Big Red midfield half an hour into the match, it seemed like the Orange finally had a breakaway chance.

Buster Sjoberg intercepted a Cornell pass in the midfield and sent it to Jeorgio Kocevski. But the pass deflected off Big Red defender Connor Drought’s hand, and the referee blew the play dead rather than playing advantage.

Head coach Ian McIntyre jumped up in the air, did a full 360, and screamed, “Referee!”

Syracuse, who has tried to speed up play all season, was understandably furious, especially when Drought wasn’t handed a yellow card. The Orange have scored many goals this year on breakaways and balls that have made it through the midfield, including all three of their goals in their most recent win against Virginia Tech on Friday.

But against No. 22 Cornell (8-0-1, 1-0 Ivy League), No. 7 Syracuse (8-2-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast) struggled to get the ball out of a crowded midfield and lost 2-1. Cornell scored its two goals on an own goal and a penalty while Syracuse recouped on a Nathan Opoku penalty score with just 17 seconds remaining. Despite a formation change at halftime, the Orange always seemed a pass away. They struggled to complete passes in the midfield and link up play in the final third.

Syracuse usually utilizes a formation that resembles a 3-5-2, but it came out in a 3-4-3 in the first half against Cornell. Christian Curti took Noah Singelmann’s usual role as right fullback while Singelmann played on the left. Levonte Johnson, Opoku and Giona Leibold all started on the forward line. Colin Biros, who had started the past eight matches, began the contest on the sidelines.

Syracuse controlled possession as usual early in the contest, but the tone of the match completely changed in the 13th minute. On Cornell’s first attack of the game, Drought crossed the ball into the box, where Singelmann and goalie Russell Shealy converged at the top of the six-yard box. Singlemann reached the ball first, but his clear attempt deflected off Shealy, and then himself, before trickling over the goal line.

After the sudden own goal, the Orange could barely penetrate a packed Cornell midfield for the rest of the half. Neither team had any real threatening chances. When Syracuse tried to go directly at Cornell’s 4-4-2 formation, the Big Red flooded the midfield and forced Syracuse into poor passes. McIntyre implored his players to widen over and over again throughout the match. After the match, he took the blame for setting his team up poorly in the first half.

The Big Red also stopped the Orange’s momentum by fouling them a season-high 25 times. Syracuse took its free kicks quickly to try to catch its opponents off guard, but it couldn’t speed play up to the same extent against Cornell. Many times, either the referee or a Cornell player held onto the ball past the whistle, slowing the Orange’s momentum as they tried to start an attack.

McIntyre and Amferny Sinclair both credited the Big Red for beating the Orange to second balls throughout the match. The Orange struggled to start attacks in the midfield from balls in the air, and if they came down with them, they often gave the ball away before reaching a threatening position.

“We try to make sure that we can win second balls, but look, our final pass wasn’t great and we were a little bit sloppy,” McIntyre said.

Down 1-0 to start the second half, Syracuse came out in a 3-6-2 formation. Johnson was substituted out for Curt Calov in the 33rd minute and didn’t return until the 67th. After a short rest, Calov returned and stayed on the pitch for the remainder of the match. McIntyre said Calov and Boselli were excellent in the midfield and again blamed himself for not inserting them earlier.

Amferny Sinclair said Syracuse was trying to play the ball wide to Leibold, Opoku or Johnson to stretch out the Cornell defense. The Orange’s play improved in the second half after their formation shift, but 20 minutes in, Cornell deflated Syracuse’s hopes after Abdi Salim took down Matthew Goncalves in the box.

On the ensuing penalty kick, Goncalves calmly slotted the ball in the left side of the net. Despite three shots on target against the ACC’s best scoring defense, Cornell was up on two “soft goals,” McIntyre said.

Sinclair said the Orange were the better team in the second half and Syracuse threw chance after chance at Cornell in the final minutes. After the 80th minute, Cornell goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg made two excellent saves on Biros and Boselli shots to the bottom left corner in the span of less than a minute. Finally, with insufficient time to score two goals and tie the game, Sjoberg fell to the ground on a corner kick and earned a penalty kick for Syracuse. Opoku scored, but Syracuse had no time to mount a second attack and tie the game.

“Over the 90 minutes, I think I’d be hard pushed to say that we deserved anything out of the game,” McIntyre said.

Published on October 4, 2022 at 11:58 pm

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