Moments after Albany’s Mariah Williams connected to break a scoreless tie early in the second half, Syracuse goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan gathered her teammates in a huddle near their goal.

“I just told them, ‘We’re better than this,’” Brosnan said. “We needed to have some pride … I was just trying to get everyone fired up and not get down because of the goal.”

Her teammates responded accordingly and Syracuse’s (2-2) back line prevented Albany (1-3) from challenging Brosnan again in a 2-1 victory at SU Soccer Stadium on Sunday. The Orange defense allowed just four shots on goal in the game, two of which were from long range and didn’t test Brosnan. It was mostly a sound performance, but Syracuse head coach Phil Wheddon said there are still things his defense must clean up.

SU’s defense faltered on Williams’ goal in the 48th minute. After Alexa Schneider’s shot hit the crossbar, Williams was there to corral the rebound and slide the ball into the back of the net.

Other than that, Syracuse’s back line — made up by Maddie Iozzi, Alana O’Neill, Erin Simon and Natasha Tchecki-Jamgotchian — consistently stopped whatever ball pressure Albany could generate.

Iozzi said that during practice last week, SU had been focusing specifically on its defense in preparation for Friday’s opponent St. John’s.

“I think that really helped us in today’s game,” Iozzi said.

Midway through the second half, Albany forward Bianca Webb momentarily got behind the Orange defense and appeared to have a scoring opportunity. Simon chased her down and stole the ball before clearing it toward midfield.

It was the correct play from Simon, Wheddon would later say, but it wasn’t one Syracuse could replicate much. Often times, rather than clearing the ball toward midfield or over the touchline, SU’s defenders would kick it out of bounds past the goal line, awarding Albany corner kicks in the process. In total, the Great Danes had six corner kicks.

“It’s going to be tough to win games if you give up that many corner kicks,” Wheddon said. “We have to be more savvy defensively… We limited shots, so I was happy with that. I just thought we were a little passive.”

Albany got its last corner kick in the 89th minute. Great Danes forward Krista Fitzpatrick took the corner and attempted to cross it near the goal, but Brosnan dove to the left of the goal to grab the ball and stop Albany from registering a shot.

Afterward, the goalkeeper was complimentary of the defense’s play but echoed Wheddon’s sentiments that there are improvements to make.

Said Brosnan: “We’re very organized dealing with the forwards and things like that. It’s just those little moments where we make mistakes, and obviously you want to work on having as few of those moments as possible.”

Published on August 30, 2015 at 7:38 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu