Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre is well aware: Ryan Raposo isn’t getting any bigger. McIntyre joked that NCAA rules restrict the Orange from morphing its 5’7”, 139-pound forward into Virginia’s much larger, 6’2”, 195-pound defender Prosper Figbe, but the truth of the matter remains simple. The Orange can workshop just about every aspect of their game: It knew about the Cavaliers’ proficiency in set pieces. It knew about their athletes. But SU can’t change its own size.

Syracuse (3-3, 0-2 Atlantic Coast), found themselves in a physical battle it couldn’t win in a 2-0 loss to No. 22 Virginia (4-0-2, 1-0-1). The Orange matched up in skill. It had the energy. But the physical play of the bigger Cavaliers was too much for SU to handle. The Cavaliers — though the Orange tried to match their physicality with aggression — outweighed the Orange in average weight 175 to 169 among starters.

“There’s a difference between being talented and a good team,” McIntyre said of SU. “I think we were resilient.”

For the past two seasons, as SU has fallen short of its pursuit of a single ACC win (its next opportunity won’t come for another seven days when it travels to Virginia Tech), the single question has been posed multiple times: why can’t Syracuse compete?

McIntyre said last Tuesday that the games are simply hard to win. Every team comes in with a history. Nothing is easy.

“There’s no magic words. There’s no secret formula,” McIntyre said Friday.

But he said a game against Virginia will teach the Orange a lot about themselves. On Friday, McIntyre left the field with a lot to hold his head high. Massimo Ferrin was the “best attacking player on the pitch.” Ferrin said he doesn’t think there’s a team in the country that can completely outmatch Syracuse’s skill. Jonathan Hagman said SU was the better team.

But on Friday, SU was held back by the things it can’t control. McIntyre measured out Virginia’s size and made joking hyperboles. Raposo is the weight of a single leg of Figbe, he said. Hilli Goldhar is the weight of the kneecap of Aboubacar Keita, he continued. Though the Orange play with fire and fury, the line was drawn between aggressiveness and SU’s tangible ability to win physical battles. And Virginia made use of its advantages.

From the opening whistle, the game featured shoves from both sides, physical plays and tough collisions. Six different Syracuse players went down with injuries at various points of the game — two within the first 10 minutes of play.

Goldhar, one of the smallest players on SU, said two weeks prior that his size compared to college defenders often leads him to “get kicked,” referring to getting knocked over by larger defenders. That play happened early and often when he was in the game. Any time he tried to make a move, a bigger player provided the barrier.

In the 32nd minute, Hagman said he lost his breath in pursuit of a loose ball and pulled down Virginia’s Kennedy Nwabia. Nwabia shot up and immediately confronted Hagman and the two seemingly exchanged words. Less than a minute later, Hagman collided with Joe Bell’s head and went crashing to the turf. He labored for a while, but as he headed to the sideline, he joked with SU players and coaches. He imitated the play, exaggerating his head motion to show the aggressive nature.

“I gave some hits as well,” Hagman said. “So I think it was kind of a fair game.”

The smiles would soon disparage. The physicality started to get to SU. Raposo growled as he tried to fight for position with the ball. The defenders weren’t getting on his nerves, he said, that’s just how he plays. Kamal Miller, who is among SU’s more physical defenders, stumbled frequently when trying to box out Cavaliers players. Ferrin, on multiple occasions, made slick moves on a Virginia defender, only to be taken down to the grass.

Toward the end of the game, Ferrin tried to challenge the goalkeeper, who held the ball by his feet. He ran in, but hit a Virginia player, not the goalkeeper. Ferrin turned frustrated and pushed back, eventually freeing himself after a brief skirmish.

“I didn’t want him to do that. I don’t think he should have,” Ferrin said. “There was no need for it.”

Again and again, the Cavaliers used their size and strength to SU’s undoing. Nwabia, after scoring the tiebreaking goal at the end of the first half, capped his play with a cartwheel into a backflip. All Syracuse could do was watch.

After Virginia’s second goal, Hugo Delhommelle kicked the ball out in front of him. At that point, he just wanted to get rid of it. The ball rolled to the midfield as he followed slowly in its trail. Seconds earlier, the ball had been fetched from the back of the Syracuse net. Goalkeeper Hendrik Hilpert stalled. SU froze. The score was 2-0 and, what started as a back and forth battle of physicality, it quickly became an unraveling to where the Orange finds itself so often.

“Do you think watching us tonight, did you think we quit? Did you think we stopped? We were pushing until that last whistle and then you saw my guys crumble to the ground,” McIntyre said. “That’s who they are. That’s what we bring.”

But in “a results-based industry,” McIntyre said, the Orange still fell short.

Published on September 21, 2018 at 9:44 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary