There are two sides to the coin. Two different ways of looking at the Syracuse men’s soccer team’s season.

One side — heads — shows that through its first five Big East games, the team hasn’t scored a goal.

‘That’s kind of an alarming statistic,’ SU defender Justin Arena said.

But when the coin comes up tails, it shows a team in fifth place in the conference’s Red Division. This side shows a team that is on pace to qualify for the Big East tournament for the first time since 2005.

‘Not having scored a goal, we’re not doing too bad for ourselves,’ midfielder Geoff Lytle said.

So when that coin is flipped in each of the Orange’s final four games, SU is hoping tails never fails.

Despite being the only team in the league without a goal in conference play, Syracuse (2-6-5, 0-2-3 Big East) would qualify for the Big East tournament if the regular season ended today. Its three ties, and subsequent three points, leave the Orange in fifth place of the eight teams in the conference’s Red Division. With the top six teams in each division advancing to postseason play, SU only has to stay afloat for four more games.

The team thinks nine points is the amount needed to feel safe about moving forward, meaning the Orange needs to double its win total in the next two weeks.

Syracuse’s five-game goalless streak to start the conference season is the longest drought since the program joined the Big East in 1985. Prior to this season, an Orange team had never gone more than three Big East games to start the season without finding the back of the net.

‘If you told us we were going to go five games without a goal, I’d be worried,’ midfielder Nick Roydhouse said. ‘This final stretch is huge. It’s like booking your place in the playoffs. You need to realistically get around nine points, and at the moment, we’re sitting on three.’

Winning at least two of the next four games will be anything but easy for the Orange. Beginning on Wednesday, Syracuse takes on Villanova, Rutgers, No. 2 Louisville and Cincinnati. With the exception of Rutgers, all of those teams are currently above Syracuse in the Red Division standings.

But that doesn’t mean the Orange can’t pull off an upset. In a season in which perennial power and preseason No. 17 St. John’s is still winless in the conference, anything is possible. In a season in which Georgetown, a team that finished one game above .500 in 2009, is leading the Blue Division, anything is possible. Parity abound.

‘You never know,’ Lytle said. ‘We had more trouble with Marquette than we did St. John’s, and on paper St. John’s is supposedly a better team. So you can’t go into any game thinking that it’s an easy three points. Every game you play, the stakes get higher and higher.’

Arena made it perfectly clear he and his teammates know what they have to do. Two wins is the minimum. Four wins would be ideal.

Arena and the other returning Syracuse players have never gotten a taste of postseason play. Not the Big East tournament. Not the NCAA Tournament. Nothing.

The hunger and the desire are there. The only question is whether or not the goals are. This team has scored fewer total goals than any team in the Big East and has been shut out seven times.

‘We need to get the first goal (in these games),’ Lytle said. ‘We need to get any goal actually, forget the first goal. That’s going to be our main mindset.’

It seems simple: score goals and win games. Yet the Orange has managed just eight goals and won just two games.

Nonetheless, the team controls its own destiny. If it can get to nine points, it will likely make the Big East tournament. It’s up to the team.

The coin will be flipped, that is for sure. The question that remains is which Syracuse team — the one that is goalless or the one that is on pace to make the Big East tournament — will be there to catch it.

‘The coaching cliché of one game at a time right now is probably more important than ever,’ McIntyre said. ‘This is the fun part. This is the exciting time of the year.’

Mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on October 18, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13