Jakob Karlgren experienced this feeling before. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen his team concede a goal in the game’s opening moments. That familiar ‘here we go again’ mentality eventually crept into his head.

‘It’s been the story of the season pretty much for us,’ he said. ‘It’s too bad.’

If ever there was a time this season that the Syracuse men’s soccer team needed to avoid a slow start, it was Wednesday night. The Orange was taking on its highest-ranked opponent in a decade. Louisville, the No. 2 team in the country, certainly didn’t need any added advantages.

But SU gave them two.

Syracuse (2-9-5, 0-5-3 Big East) allowed a goal in the first six minutes of each half and couldn’t battle back against one of the nation’s best teams. The Orange ultimately fell, 2-1, to the Cardinals (13-0-2, 8-0-0 Big East) in front of 722 fans at the SU soccer stadium. Karlgren tied the game near the end of the first half, but SU couldn’t muster a second equalizer to force overtime. Louisville dominated possession in both halves and prevented the Orange from creating more than a handful of scoring chances.

As Karlgren accurately stated, early goals have been an issue for the team this season. With the Cardinals scoring their first goal in the game’s seventh minute, it was the 11th goal the Orange has given up in the first 30 minutes of games this season. Of those 11, four have been conceded in the first ten minutes.

‘It’s been, unfortunately, a trend this year,’ SU head coach Ian McIntyre said. ‘It’s great to say that we’re resilient and we bounce back, but it would be nice to score that first goal.

The Cardinals struck first on a through-ball that split Karlgren and fellow defender David Neumann. Louisville’s Dylan Mares controlled the pass and bent a shot around SU goalkeeper Jeremy Vuolo and into the bottom right corner.

But as has been the case, Syracuse responded. Much like it did against Villanova last Wednesday, the Orange hung in there against a better team and evened the score. Karlgren got his head on a cross by midfielder Nick Roydhouse in the 36th minute to put Syracuse on the board.

‘Yeah, you’re worried (after conceding an early goal),’ McIntyre said. ‘But I was interested to see how we would react. And I thought we reacted well.’

Heading into the half, Syracuse had the momentum. It was tied 1-1 with the No. 2 team in the country, and it was well on its way to earning a result that would help sneak into the Big East tournament.

And in the early minutes of the second half, the Orange dominated the Cardinals. Twice in the opening five minutes, SU had legitimate scoring chances. A shot by Mark Brode sent a roar through the crowd before the whole stadium realized it had only hit the side netting.

‘The shot I took that everyone thought went in, we were feeling it at that point of the game,’ Brode said.

But in seconds, that feeling was gone. With a single pass, Louisville showed why it is the conference’s best team.

The Cardinals’ Kenney Walker made a tackle on SU midfielder Mawuena Agbossoumonde just outside his own penalty box and started a counter attack. His ball in behind the Syracuse defense gave teammate Colin Rolfe a breakaway, and he buried a shot into the upper left corner of the goal.

In an instant, Syracuse went from being on the verge of taking the lead to being down 2-1.

‘It is a bit of a sucker punch,’ McIntyre said. ‘I think it’s a little bit of naivety, but also you give credit (to Louisville). They’ve got a lot of pace. We got caught attacking, got dispossessed, and they quickly turned that in and we got exposed.’

From that point forward, the Cardinals toyed with the Orange by possessing the ball for minutes at a time. Louisville put together more than 20 consecutive passes at one point. Syracuse was forced to chase, and its fatigue began to increase.

‘It’s always mentally tough to always chase the ball,’ Karlgren said. ‘It’s tough to chase the whole time and be one goal down.’

But it all comes back to giving up early goals. If the Orange doesn’t concede, it doesn’t have to chase.

And by coming out five minutes too late, Syracuse came away with nothing.

‘We started on our heels both first and second half,’ Vuolo said. ‘Unfortunately, we had to pay for it. If we don’t start that slow, we come away with a point or three points.’

Mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on October 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13