The Syracuse soccer team has won two straight games. Freshman goalie Alim Karim is coming off his first collegiate shutout, a 2-0 blanking against Colgate on Tuesday.

Still, Syracuse is cautiously optimistic heading into its matchup with Adelphi on Saturday at noon in Soccer Stadium.

‘We started off slow,’ junior defender Chris Aloisi said. ‘We’re still not playing the best we can. Hopefully this weekend we can get another win and play well and build from there.’

Meanwhile, Adelphi is struggling to rebuild a team plagued by injuries and defensive weaknesses.

‘We’re behind the eight ball right now and trying to make up ground,’ Adelphi head coach Bob Montgomery said.

The Panthers are 0-4 and have lost their last eight games against Syracuse. And, with one of their key players possibly out for the season, the outlook is bleak.

Defender Gary Sullivan played through injury in Adelphi’s loss to St. John’s on Wednesday but the junior will likely redshirt, said Montgomery, who marks his 25th season with the team this year.

‘I don’t think we’ve gelled as a group,’ Montgomery said. ‘That’s our big problem.’

Adelphi returns eight starters from last season and adds seven freshmen to the roster this year.

The Orangemen, who lost their first two games but now stand at 2-2, are experiencing similar problems.

‘We play for 10 or 15 minute spurts at a time,” forward Kirk Johnson said, “and seem not to be able to put more than 30 minutes of a game together.”

And while Karim has impressed in goal, SU needs more than a strong keeper to stay competitive.

‘He made some big saves,’ Johnson said. ‘But we can’t rely on that. We don’t rely on that.’

Said Syracuse head coach Dean Foti: ‘There’s almost too much team confidence. We’ve still got a lot of things that we need to clean up and improve on, and I think sometimes winning masks a lot of things.’

Even the team’s wins, Foti said, have been sloppily executed.

‘We were lucky to get ourselves out of a jam at Georgetown, and we played a good first half at Colgate,’ Foti said. “But you have to play 90 minutes, and we haven’t come close to doing that yet this year.’

Despite Adelphi’s record, Syracuse players have tried to avoid the temptation to write off the Panthers.

‘We took Coastal Carolina a little lightly because they weren’t a big-time team, and we ended up losing 3-1,’ Johnson said. ‘So after that, we don’t take anybody lightly.’

Published on September 12, 2002 at 12:00 pm