UPDATED: Nov. 19, 2018 at 11:40 a.m.

HAMILTON, N.Y. — Sondre Norheim stuck his arms up and shrugged his shoulders. Just a few minutes ago the Orange had been thrown into desperation mode. They had a season to save, down a goal, and little time to do it. Now, the dagger had been stabbed in its chest.

An Akron offensive player trailed behind his teammates and pumped his fist as he started toward the Syracuse goal, the keeping place of the last ball to touch an Akron forward’s foot. Syracuse stalled. Then, its season flashed before them.

The Orange (7-6-4, 1-4-3 Atlantic Coast) lost, 3-1, to Akron (11-6-2, 1-2-1 Mid American) in the second round of the NCAA men’s soccer tournament. The Orange’s season ended at the hands of a team it had already beaten. In a game with the same amount of goals. Head coach Ian McIntyre said Akron didn’t do anything different, either. SU’s season-long struggles to find consistency between games finally fell on its head. By nature of the same end of game struggles that plagued it in each of the past two seasons, the Orange dropped another game. Many held their hands over their faces to shield the harsh reality: it was over.

“There’s a finality in every college game. That’s the emotionally challenging part of college athletics, what makes it so special.” McIntyre said. “You rent your jersey for four years. And then it’s time to graduate.”

Syracuse forward Severin Soerlie consoles Jonathan Hagman after the game. Paul Schlesinger | Staff Photographer

Following a loss to Virginia Tech earlier in the season, Syracuse retreated to their hotel. The early season woes had reached their breaking point. It wasn’t the loss, it was the way it lost. Syracuse took Virginia Tech to double overtime scoreless. In the final two minutes, the Hokies’ Nico Quashie broke through the Syracuse defense for a doorstep goal. “The worst way to lose,” Jonathan Hagman said.

Players threw their belongings on the sideline. Some dug their faces into their jersey and dropped to the ground. Others cried. The Orange returned to its hotel with the frustration flowing. It needed a night to cool down, to figure things out, but Hagman couldn’t sleep. The season started to form an eerie similarity to a year prior. Syracuse had talent, but ends of games it faltered. Early-season losses dragged. SU tried to find the positives in its draws. Syracuse hadn’t won a conference game in almost two years, and nothing — physical play or a personnel change — provided any immediate answer.

As Syracuse learned about itself, its record felt the burden. The Orange had piled up four losses to that point, and were on its way to its second straight losing season.

But the next day was different. Enough was enough, Hagman said.

“I’m tired of saying that we are doing a good job but we’re not getting the result,” Hagman said to goalkeeper Hendrik Hilpert. And Hilpert sought to find a solution. He scoured many members of the team and asked for what the Orange can change. A different mindset? A new approach? He caught people at the hotel, and walked up the rows of the bus on the way back to Syracuse.

Hilpert reported his findings back to McIntyre: SU is too good to be playing this poorly, they said. Syracuse didn’t need to change, it just needed to realize.

“It wasn’t like any tactical thing,” Hagman said. “We just decided: we’re not losing.”

Hugo Delhommelle stood alone on the field after the Orange left the field. Paul Schlesinger | Staff Photographer

Against Akron in October, the mood shifted. Norheim felt the difference. Many others did too. The early part of the game seemed tense, Norheim said, but then Hagman got the first goal to cross the line. Then another. And another. In the “turning point” of the season, Syracuse was dominant. And for the first time all season, it followed through.

It ripped three-straight wins. It knocked off then-No. 1 Wake Forest at home. Then it dominated Ohio State a similar way. There was a different sense among the SU players. The Orange didn’t squander big moments, it rose above them. Many players looked back at the season-shifting run. Against Virginia Tech in the first round of the ACC tournament, many players shrugged off the similarities. Hilpert, when prompted of the possibility of matching up with Akron again at Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament selection watch party, grinned.

“It just makes you more confident,” Hilpert said. With Wake Forest on the other side of their own bracket, just one win by both teams away from a rematch, the prophecy seemed real.

The Orange started off on the offensive. John-Austin Ricks picked off multiple passes early on in the game. One led to a chance by Ryan Raposo in front of the goal. The freshman received the ball off the right-center of the goal and fired a shot off the head of an Akron defender. The ensuing cross deflected wide and SU worked the ball in to Raposo for another. Hugo Delhommelle, who hasn’t scored a goal all season, shot more times than he had in any game all year. When the ball finally found its way near the Syracuse goal, Kamal Miller’s foot kept it away.

After an early Akron goal, Djimon Johnson placed his arm around Hagman’s shoulder, who struggled to keep his head out of his jersey. Johnson yelled and Hagman jumped. The next play, Syracuse took it upfield. It took its chances: Massimo Ferrin’s shot was saved by Akron goalkeeper Ben Lundt. Hagman tacked on another. Then, Ferrin led a one-man break up the field, faked right, faked left and, with the swift move of his left foot, gave the Orange life.

“With 25 minutes left,” McIntyre said. “I felt good about the game.”

Jonathan Hagman trailed behind his Syracuse teammates. Paul Schlesinger | Staff Photographer

But the script flipped. A step over move that works frequently for Ferrin, in which he kicks the ball behind a defender then jumps laterally the the other side, was halted multiple times. Akron was crisp with their passes and powerful with their delivery. Delhommelle wanted to score Sunday. He wanted to keep Syracuse in it. He wanted to provide the opening push of a run of which the Orange had already some familiarity.

After Akron’s second goal, Syracuse pushed its players forward. All season SU had searched for one play to shift the momentum. But again and again, it came up empty.

“I really thought that we had them,” Delhommelle said.

Hagman fell to the ground and put his hands over his face to shield the tears. The senior, who was not made available after the game, went into the locker room as Delhommelle stood at center field with his hands over his face. Inside the locker room, some sat in the corner and didn’t move. Hagman walked out with his face red. Miller and Hilpert, who were also not made available, walked out with their eyes still watery. An SU athletics employee asked Hilpert to keep his head up. He nodded and walked off the field, never to return in a Syracuse uniform.

The entire SU contingent watched in disbelief. The Orange ended its season, like it had so many games earlier in the year, without an answer.

After the game, McIntyre stood adjacent to the SU locker room. The snow picked up and formed a pile on top of his head. He looked back at the game, and at the careers of some of his seniors. All season long, he had preached to them what it’d taken them so long to realize. As it settled in players’ minds at the start of Syracuse’s mid-season win-streak, losses became easier to gloss over. The Orange can beat any team in the country, they thought. They’d proved it, and a loss is just a setback. There was always another game to look forward to.

“That second goal was important, wasn’t it?” McIntyre asked. He didn’t pause and wait for an answer. He already knew it. Syracuse won’t have a chance to correct this. It’s done.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Hendrik Hilpert was misquoted. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on November 18, 2018 at 4:11 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary