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Head coach Ian McIntyre wants his players to be “brave.” He likes it when they’re out on the pitch with aggressive running, leaping for jump balls and playing physically. Especially against a team like North Carolina, a team Syracuse notched its first road win of the season — and only conference win on the road this year — McIntyre knew playing up was going to be more effective. For a team that had one of the worst shot-on-goal percentages in college soccer heading into the matchup, the aggressive play and 50-50 balls were going to determine who moved on to the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship game.

But just six minutes into their matchup with the Tar Heels, the Orange were already losing in transition, giving balls to North Carolina at midfield. When Gabriel Mikina received a pass up next to Syracuse’s bench, he turned upfield and looked for UNC’s goal. The Tar Heels clamped down immediately, and Quenzi Huerman, who entered with a team-leading nine goals on the year, poked the ball out from Mikina’s grasp and took off on a three-on-two breakaway.

With just Buster Sjoberg and Olu Oyegunle to beat, Huerman kicked it up to Martin Vician, who finished the job with a shot that got past Jahiem Wickham in the lower right corner. The Orange had hardly settled in and were already down 1-0.

Wednesday night quickly turned into a physical matchup marred with five yellow cards, a flurry of fouls and one costly red card on Jeorgio Kocevski. SU needed to play fast in order to beat a team that it hardly took down on the road with a 1-0 victory in October. It was trying to reach back-to-back ACC Championship games for the first time in program history but needed to outmatch a deep team filled with powerful center backs and midfielders. The Orange couldn’t, and key mistakes in the midfield and in transition led to more chances — and eventually three goals for No. 7 North Carolina (10-3-5, 2-3-3 ACC) — that eliminated No. 18 Syracuse (9-5-6, 2-1-5 ACC) from the conference tournament.

“I want us to play, but you can’t give the team of the caliber of North Carolina a goal like that,” McIntyre said.

After the loss, McIntyre sighed when asked what went wrong on that opening goal, the deciding goal that ended up being too much for the Orange to prove. Their whole midfield, he said, was full of talented players, terrific Tar Heels that have been a challenge for the entire conference. Sam Williams. Andrew Czech. Vician. They were all scoring midfielders who pressed up on the Orange’s defense and wreaked havoc throughout the match. North Carolina knew that Syracuse was also a team that was going to press and take chances. McIntyre said he wanted SU to do that more, especially in such a critical game as Wednesday evening proved to be.

UNC hardly outshot the Orange and were doubled up on corner kicks. But it took advantage of its opportunities and converted. The Tar Heels knew they didn’t need many chances, as long as they bullied through SU’s second line and won enough balls to open up chances in the open field, they’d convert for decisive goals. The Orange had numbers around Mikina when he received the pass vying for a first goal. McIntyre said they could have gone for a vertical ball or bypassed the pressure by speeding up the sideline and buying time for a better opportunity to open up.

“We could have done it a little bit better. We turned it over,” McIntyre said.

Despite the 10 corner kicks, Syracuse didn’t convert any. Early in the October win against North Carolina, Kocevski’s corner kick found the head of Sjoberg, who redirected the ball into the net to give SU an early lead, one it would hold onto for the next 68 minutes. Syracuse finished the game outshooting the Tar Heels 12-9. On Wednesday evening, Kocevski’s feed to the head of Kaloukian that went into the net came when Syracuse was already down 2-0. The chances just didn’t come.

McIntyre said the problems Syracuse had were in transition. It was trying to get Nate Edwards going forward, and when Kocevski went down, Kaloukian became the striker that was receiving most of the services. But the combination of Williams, Czech and Vician halted the Orange’s chances at completing services down field to Edwards. The senior midfielder was frequently stuffed up against the sideline when he did get the ball, and couldn’t do anything with it when the Tar Heels’ midfielders swarmed him.

In the waning seconds of an eventual 3-1 loss, as the snow flurries turned into hail and the once packed stands at SU Soccer Stadium thinned out, Oyegunle sped up the near sideline looking for someone to pass up to. No one was there, and with two defenders collapsing on him, he had no choice but to kick it into the teeth of UNC’s defense. A few minutes later, Oyegunle got called for a foul. He was trying to get the ball away from Andrew Kitch and tripped him up in the middle of the field, another example of an aggressive attempt gone wrong for the Orange.

“When the ball turned over, they could kind of feed their front three. Our guys are in pretty bad shape,” McIntyre said. “We’ll get over this, and then we’ll see who we’re playing next week and the national tournament journey starts.”

Published on November 8, 2023 at 10:14 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt