Syracuse Men’s Soccer hosted its first round NCAA tournament match on Thursday against Hofstra, which resulted in a 2-0 win for the Pride. This cuts a promising Orange season short as they finish with a 9-8-3 record.
Syracuse started the game on the wrong foot, as they began to flounder early in this one. The main story of the whole game, and especially these first couple of minutes, was fouls, as Syracuse had 19 in this game, many coming in the first half. This would lead to the Orange’s downfall,
as in the 19th minute, Tomas Hut tried to bat the ball away from a Hofstra attacker, but got his feet instead, resulting in a penalty which Lourie Goddard calmly slotted away to put the Pride up 1-0.
Unfortunately, Syracuse would continue their negative play after this goal, as Hofstra was continuing to dominate the game. Just six minutes after the first goal, Hofstra went on the attack once again, creating a dangerous attacking threat in the Orange box. Lourie Goddard hit a shot at Tomas Hut, which he perried directly into the feet of former Orangeman Daniel Burko, who slotted it away to make it 2-0, the scoreline that would stand for the rest of the game.
After that, the Orange cleaned it up a little more defensively, but the damage had already been done. Further, the offense could not really get anything going. They were able to get into attacking positions; however, the finishing from the whole team was off, as there was never really an incredible shot that stood out to me the whole game. As the second half continued, the Orange found a little bit of life; the attacking chances came more often, and Hofstra was getting less pressure off, but it was much too little, much too late, and the Pride were able to fend off the Orange to face Vermont in the next round.
Statistically, the main story from the game has to be the shot disparity. While Syracuse had more overall shots, 18 to Hofstra’s 13, Hofstra got seven shots on target, while the Orange only managed three, all coming in the final 20 minutes of the game. This showed especially in that second half, as Syracuse had 13 shots total but still were unable to find the net or even a decent chance against the Hofstra defense. Of course, the fouls also played a large role in the defeat, as having 19 of them won’t usually lead to a good result; however, when I see the game from a statistical point of view, the shots are what stand out to me.
Looking towards the future, there is quite a lot of promise among this roster, even if some players are going to be difficult to replace. Players like Giona Leibold and Tomas Hut are going to be significant losses for the Orange to replace, and they will likely have to hit the portal very hard in the offseason. However, there are some promising young players on this team, such as the likes of Landon Darko and Sachiel Ming. Overall, this offseason will likely be very big in shaping the team for next year, as they attempt to make it 4 NCAA tournament bids in 5 years.
We’ll have more on that in the weeks ahead.
