Courtney Brosnan lie with her body flat. Her face dug into the grass at SU soccer stadium. An errant pass from the right corner of the SU box had just given the Blue Devils a wide open opportunity in front of a net and a flailing attempt by the SU goalkeeper put her on the ground. There was a ball in the back of the SU net and there was little she could do to prevent it. On that play and the next, the Orange were outmatched and outnumbered.

“We dug a hole for ourselves,” Syracuse head coach Phil Wheddon said. “Conceding those first two goals… they were poor.”

Syracuse (7-8-2, 2-6-1 Atlantic Coast) tried to combat No. 4 Duke’s (16-1, 9-0) heavy pressure by rotating back and forth with sets of four in the front and back of the field. The swaps, intending to boost the Orange, instead led to varying stretches of struggles on each side, as the newly depleted area of the field with just three players couldn’t handle the Blue Devils.

“Soccer players are used to adapting, changing the formation,” Brosnan said. “(We’re) just doing whatever we can to win the game.”

After passing the ball well in the beginning, Syracuse hardly possessed the ball as the Blue Devils weaved passes in between SU defenders no matter what personnel the Orange had in the back. The same went for the Orange’s offense, in which Syracuse struggled to find a hole on its way to just five shots.

Taylor Bennett started the game at striker for the second time in as many games. But she switched back to her normal defensive role following a shift in the lineup after Duke scored its first goal of the game. She played only in spurts, not starting the second half because of being “injured,” Wheddon said.

Shannon Aviza, Jessica Vigna and Alana O’Neill were forced to patrol the back for a large part of the game, with Clarke Brown and Bennett rotating in after SU decided to go with the four-person group in front of the Orange’s senior goalkeeper.

The switch provided Syracuse very little aid as it still struggled to stick to the ball due to Duke’s “very crafty” play, Brosnan said.

In the ninth minute, Ella Stevens collected the ball in stride and fired a thru-ball that managed to pass through a swarm of three SU defenders who collapsed to the ball. It made its way to the foot of Kayla McCoy, who has given the Blue Devils the second most goals of any player in the ACC. It was a defensive lapse, but one that was triggered by a fancy display of passing from Duke.

“The first goal was just amazing,” Vigna said. “That was just…” She trailed off.

A change was needed, but it couldn’t find the right one. Syracuse resorted to using four on defense and only using three forwards.

Then, it had a new problem.

After stealing possession from the Blue Devils in the 67th minute, the Orange had an opportunity in the open field. Eva Gordon controlled the ball, with Alex Lamontagne and Bennett on her wings. What seemed like an opportunity for the Orange to get its first goal of the game, turned into a lost possession as the Blue Devils raced down and swarmed the Orange with six defenders. Gordon could make just one move before kicking it right into the leg of the defender three feet to her front with nowhere else to go with the ball.

Later in the game, O’Neill dribbled it all the way just a few feet away from the Duke goal line. Again, the senior day crowd of 844 stood in anticipation of Syracuse finally breaking the scoreboard. She was swarmed by Duke defenders and, in what could have been the closest a Syracuse player has gotten to the goal without scoring all season, a seemingly blatant chance became nearly impossible to convert.

“They’re No. 4 on the country for a reason,” Wheddon said.

For the senior players, the loss was the last memory they would create as a player for Syracuse at their home grass. Syracuse tried and tried and tried, but could never find the right formation to secure the victory. Falling behind early, like the Orange have done in so many of its conference games, complicated Syracuse’s strategy as it desperately searched for a goal it would never find.

“We made a switch… and then another switch… and then we made a switch again,” Wheddon said. “It’s just moving pieces of the players, trying to get more out of every individual players.

“What do you want to be remembered by?”

Syracuse never found the memory it wanted.

Published on October 22, 2017 at 5:13 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary