It’s not that Syracuse’s forwards didn’t want to shoot, they just couldn’t find the space.

If an Orange player was anywhere near striking distance, three Hartwick defenders crowded around him. The crowd begged for a shot, but there was no space for SU to operate in the attacking third. As each hollow opportunity passed, a tactical adjustment became increasingly inevitable.

But when head coach Ian McIntyre stood in front of his team after a scoreless first half, a tactical adjustment wasn’t on his mind. Instead, he urged his team to speed up its play and seize the opportunity to entertain the home crowd.

“He said we had to impose ourselves, because this is our home field,” said junior midfielder Nick Perea. “We had to play faster because that’s our game.”

And that’s exactly what the Orange did.

On the heels of a sloppy first half, an increase in energy was what No. 20 Syracuse (2-0-0) needed to edge Hartwick (0-1-1) 2-0 at SU Soccer Stadium on Monday night. In its first home game of the season, the Orange looked slow and, at times, confused in the early going. But once SU found its speedy identity, the Hawks simply couldn’t keep up.

“We started slow, we were definitely sluggish,” McIntyre said. “We had a lot of possession, but didn’t create enough quality chances. When we broke their initial line of pressure, we started to look good and get those opportunities.”

The Orange’s abundance of first-half possessions was mired by Hartwick’s swarming defense.
In the 20th minute, SU slowed down play considerably. Sophomore Stefanos Stamoulacatos, freshman Alex Halis and junior Jordan Murrell played tic-tac-toe on the left side of the field while the Hawks’ defense sat in an impenetrable pyramid.

At a distance, the Orange’s quick passing was pleasing to the eye. But when any player attempted to dribble toward the box, the once distinguishable pyramid turned into an amoeba around the ball.

“That was because we were playing slower and building through the back,” said junior forward Grant Chong. “They definitely pressured us, which we expected, we just had to break in and I think we did successfully.”

It was Chong, in the 50th minute, who took SU out of its slow start and onto the scoreboard. He settled a lob pass from Halis, took two dribbles and unleashed a rocket into the top-right corner.

Hartwick goalie Mateo Munarriz made a leaping effort, but it was placed too perfectly. Chong threw his hands into the air and his teammates quickly mobbed him at the top of the Hawks’ box.

That was all Syracuse needed to catapult itself into a more comfortable, effective philosophy.

“In the second half, it was about keeping the tempo high,” McIntyre said. “Getting that first goal, and then eventually the second, helped us do that.”

As the game wore on, SU didn’t possess the ball as methodically as it did in the first half. But the possessions it did have were more purposeful, as evidenced by the game’s decisive goals.

Nine minutes after Chong gave the Orange the lead, Perea pushed the lead to 2-0. Once the Orange earned a throw-in in the attacking third, Murrell scanned the field for a target.
With most of Hartwick’s players casually walking with their heads down, Perea stepped into open space and Murrell put the ball at his feet. It was the space that wasn’t there in the first half, when the Hawks subjected the Orange to its smothering brand of soccer.

Perea’s shot deflected off of a cluster of defenders and found the back of the net.

The Orange relished in the few moments when Hartwick’s defense wasn’t set, and a few moments was all it needed.

Said Perea: “The second half was the way we should have played all along. We had a slow start, but it all came together when it needed to.”

Published on September 3, 2013 at 12:09 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse