Nyal Higgins’ eyebrows raised as his eyes widened. Higgins reacted as if he’d seen a ghost when asked about his gaff — completely whiffing a routine pass — after the game. 

The senior center back had “missed the whole ball” on a slide to John-Austin Ricks in the second half and watched as a Binghamton forward ran toward the net, one-on-one with goalkeeper Jake Leahy. Win the ball back, he remembered thinking.

Higgins accelerated to the ball as the thought of a potential game-tying goal crossed his mind. When Higgins caught up to Noah Luescher, the eldest member of SU’s defense tackled the forward and cleared the ball before Luescher could get a shot off. 

After explaining the incident, Higgins’ mood changed: “Now that I think of it, it’s kind of funny.”

Higgins, along with head coach Ian McIntyre, was impressed with their new-look backline, one that started two freshmen, three days after a 3-1 loss to Georgetown on Friday. That’s because Syracuse’s (1-1) backline allowed just five shots, including two in the final 45 minutes of a 3-1 win over Binghamton (1-1) at SU Soccer Stadium. The mistakes occasionally popped up, including an opening goal in the 18th minute and Higgins’ close call, but Syracuse’s offense picked did its part as its defense kept it in the game.

“These games — where the ball is going front to back, very direct with long throw-ins — we had to roll our sleeves up,” McIntyre said.

 

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For the first 10 minutes of action, Binghamton was unable to possess the ball in Syracuse’s half. High-arching headers landed at the base of Orange cleats and SU forwards berated BU goalie Mats Roorda with shots. 

Somehow, despite the lopsided possession, BU broke through before the Orange. In the 18th minute, Parker McKnight ran the ball toward two defenders. A fake to his left left and two steps right dropped Simon Triantafillou onto the pitch. McKnight froze Leahy with a perfectly placed shot that floated to the top right corner. The goal was Binghamton’s first shot of the game.

“We gave him maybe a yard too much space,” McIntyre said.

Syracuse was down a goal to a team that went 3-12-2 in 2018, a far cry from an Orange team that defeated the No. 1 team in the nation. But Massimo Ferrin responded in minutes, putting pressure on both backlines to hold still at one apiece.

The shots didn’t stop coming from Syracuse, but they weren’t converting — a pair of Raposo open shots sailed over the net, and one mishit shot caused Severin Soerlie to wince and put his hands on his head. But, unlike SU, Binghamton didn’t create another opportunity. 

“We were tight in the backfield and our midfield was clogged,” Higgins said. “We were pretty combat, so not many shots.”

Throw-ins became easy possession flips and the Orange midfielders’ physicality on free kicks started opportunities for Raposo and Ferrin. With a 10-shot streak without a goal, eventually, they’d have to cash in. 

“We trust everybody back there,” Ferrin said. “I feel like we dominated most of the game having the confidence back there that if we’re getting lucky up front, it’d be because we’re not going to let one in.”

Raposo was the beneficiary of a lucky bounce off Roorda’s glove and gave SU an inevitable lead. But that was almost erased by Higgins’ misplay. His slide tackle ended the only Binghamton one-on-one of the night before it even started. But postgame, that was an afterthought. The focus was how its backline gave Syracuse enough time to recover.

The Bearcats rattled off a sequence of corners in the 78th minute, trying to muster any sort of offense to stay within a game. Two crosses went the wrong direction for Binghamton and a third landed in Leahy’s gloves. Seconds later, Raposo ran toward the sidelines after putting the game away with his fifth point of the day — his team clinging to a lead that wouldn’t be possible without its strong backline. 

Limiting Binghamton to five shots, one of which was an unstoppable shot, was no slight feat for an unproven, young defense. But Syracuse didn’t see it that way. They wanted the whole picture.

“There’s a lot of work to be done attacking defensively, though,” Raposo said. “We know that.”

Published on September 2, 2019 at 11:35 pm

Contact KJ: kjedelma@syr.edu | @KJEdelman