On any other night, Ian McIntyre would’ve embraced the rainy weather.

But on Friday night, the slippery conditions didn’t make it any easier for his Syracuse team to go up against No. 4 Notre Dame.

“I think it’s pretty awesome, to be perfectly honest,” the SU head coach said of the weather. “Yeah, it makes it more difficult for defenders certainly, such a greasy surface. For attacking players, their ball movement and that was the difference when the game opened up.

“They moved the ball a little bit quicker than we did. It got stuck under our feet a little bit.”

In part because of the field conditions, the Orange (3-2-0, 0-2-0 Atlantic Coast) didn’t have many scoring opportunities against the Fighting Irish (2-0-2, 1-0-1) in UND’s 3-0 win on Friday night. Syracuse had difficulty keeping its footing – literally and figuratively – on the slick grass of SU Soccer Stadium and couldn’t keep up in its sloppy ACC home opener.

Syracuse’s attack fired just four shots on ND, mustering only one on net.

“Disappointing thing is we didn’t test their goalkeeper enough,” McIntyre said. “We should’ve really used these conditions to kind of skid some shots at him and put him under a little bit more pressure.”

With steady rainfall coming down early in the game, the Orange’s troubles with the conditions surfaced quickly.

A sprinting Alex Halis, with not a single defender around, couldn’t stay on his feet near the SU sideline, and a pass intended for him bounced out of bounds.

Chris Nanco slipped up near the touchline and couldn’t corral a pass. Juuso Pasanen tumbled to the grass after sending an awry pass Nanco’s way.

“I think it affects us a bit with keeping possession,” Nanco said, “but that’s up to us to control the ball and do what we can. I feel like we should’ve had more opportunities and used the conditions to our advantage.”

Gogo Kollie, even with his soft-ground soccer cleats, had issues with the surface on numerous occasions, most noticeably early in the second half.

The junior Kollie was in perfect position for an interception at midfield, but slipped to the ground. Notre Dame kept control of the ball, and found the back of the net on that very possession for its third goal of the contest.

“It sucks. It sucks because the ball keeps skipping and people sliding everywhere,” Kollie said. “It was really hard getting control of the ball and getting yourself situated. It was really hard.

“It really had a great impact on our game. We had a few opportunities but, like I said, the field is so bad.”

In addition to the unpredictable bounces and skips the ball took, the difficulties of maintaining balance struck the Orange much more frequently than it did the Irish, making SU’s uphill battle even steeper.

Yet even when the Orange had its chances, it couldn’t capitalize.

In the 64th minute, UND’s Grant Van De Casteele fell victim to the conditions by slipping and tripping SU’s Emil Ekblom, resulting in a yellow card and penalty opportunity for Syracuse.

Just as UND fared on all five of SU’s corner kicks, the Irish held its ground — unlike the Orange.

“The disappointing thing is we had a pretty awesome crowd for a rainy night here in Syracuse,” McIntyre said, “so that’s a little bit disappointing that we couldn’t have given them a little bit more.”

Published on September 14, 2013 at 12:31 am

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb