Ian McIntyre paced around the field and replaced divots.

The rain, that had shined and soaked his black dress shoes throughout the 90-minute contest, had lightened, and both teams had left the playing field. Alone, McIntyre stared into the grass and replayed the game in his head.

But when asked why his team fell on the wrong end of a 3-0 final score, anguish was hidden by his smile.

“They’re a good team, they’re an elite team, and you have to give a lot of credit to them,” McIntyre said. “They are one of the teams I like watching the most in college soccer, tough I had to coach against them tonight.”

Syracuse (3-2-0, 0-2-0 Atlantic Coast) was shut out by No. 4 Notre Dame (2-0-2, 1-0-1) 3-0 on Friday night at SU Soccer Stadium. A game marred by consistent rain from start to finish accentuated the Irish’s skill and experience, as well as the Orange’s untimely mistakes.

“I thought we started the game actually quite well,” McIntyre said. “But anytime you give a team a chance to score on a restart, you start chasing the game. And from there, that’s where their speed really showed.”

Down 1-0 in the 20th minute, the Orange pushed to tie the game.

After the Irish ousted a corner kick, Alex Halis found Stefanos Stamoulacatos streaking behind the defense. Stamoulacatos then passed to freshman forward Emil Ekblom in the center of the box who headed the ball past Notre Dame goalkeeper Patrick Wall, and into the back of the net.

The 1,538 fans in attendance – the fifth largest crowd in SU Soccer Stadium history – erupted in cheers and players leapt off Syracuse’s bench. But the referee on the far sideline had his hand up the entire play.

Stamoulacatos was offside and the goal was called back. On its best scoring chance of the night SU didn’t tally a shot, let alone the game’s equalizing goal.

Syracuse finished the game with just four shots, and only one on frame.

“It was just a good team we played tonight,” said junior midfielder Nick Perea. “We didn’t string enough passes together and we’ll have to work on that moving forward.”

Two minutes later the Irish scored again and like its first goal, it was off a corner kick. But the difference was that junior defender Skylar Thomas wasn’t on the field.

Thomas was playing when UND sophomore midfielder Evan Panken headed the ball by Alex Bono in the 17th. But five minutes later he was limping along the sideline with SU’s training staff while an unmarked Andrew O’Malley slotted home another set piece goal.

“I think it was just lack of marking,” said junior center back Chris Makowski. “It didn’t feel like we were fully prepared to defend set pieces, and we weren’t mentally focused enough.”

Early in the second half, the same referee that deflated the home crowd in the 20th minute sealed the Orange’s fate.

Irish senior forward Leon Brown appeared to be offside, but this time the ref’s hand stayed at his side. UND’s possession went on and ended with sophomore midfielder Patrick Hodan knifing through the Orange’s defense and sliding the clinching goal by Bono.

“The back four never really changes,” Bono said. “We have a set back four, and when it does change that’s when new guys come in that aren’t as in tune with the rest of the guys.”

From there SU reeled to the finish. Notre Dame forward Harrison Shipp used his speed to leisurely control possession, and the Orange’s struggles were punctuated by Mike Koegel’s red card in the 80th minute that left the team a man down.

And after all that, McIntyre spoke candidly of his team’s shortcomings on the night.

Notre Dame created chances and Syracuse didn’t. Notre Dame was clinical and Syracuse wasn’t. Notre Dame is mainly comprised of upperclassmen, while Syracuse relies on a core of underclassmen to produce every night.

Instead of trapping himself in his own head, that’s how McIntyre defined the night.

“We were four minutes away from being 4-0 and 1-0 in the ACC down at Virginia Tech, that was more disappointing ‘cause we let one slip away,” McIntyre said. “Tonight we just lost to a very good Notre Dame side.”

Published on September 14, 2013 at 12:27 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse