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Giona Leibold returned to the match against Cornell in the 80th minute, subbing out defender Olu Oyegunle. The Big Red already led 2-0 and Syracuse needed any sort of the attack possible to cut into its deficit. 

A minute later, Christian Curti began driving past the midfield line into the Big Red’s defensive half, before slipping a through ball to Leibold. SU’s left midfielder delivered a head-level well-driven cross into the box, which caused a loose ball in the box and to two quick shots by the Orange’s Colin Biros and Levonte Johnson.

Cornell’s Ryan Friedberg made the save, but Leibold’s play on the left represented one of the many times he generated some form of offense for No. 7 Syracuse (8-2-1, 3-1-0 Atlantic Coast) in its 2-1 loss to No. 22 Cornell (8-1-0, 1-0 Ivy League). In 83 minutes of play, Leibold notched three shots, with one of them on goal, and made several plays on the left side of the pitch, making give-and-go passes and sending in crosses. 

“I’ve tried to do my best to make sure I can lead ones over the wing, get enough crosses (and) to provide enough crosses for our strikers to execute with,” Leibold said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for us. Tough loss, but we’ll learn from it and we’re looking forward to fighting.”

On a play on the left side in the second half, Leibold drove right past Cornell’s Nick Allen, eventually forcing a corner as Allen recovered on the run.

In the eighth minute, Leibold played a quick give-and-go with defender Noah Singelmann, who lined up on the left side. After the combination in the left-corner, Leibold forced one of the seven corners SU had, but the team struggled to capitalize on set pieces. 

In the ensuing action, the sophomore utilized his quickness from the left side. Leibold received a pass, which he redirected to have the ball rolling in front of him down the left side. Using his speed, he sprinted past the Cornell right back, sending a low-driven ball into the box, which was ultimately cleared away by the backline. His speed continued in the second half Leibold drove right past Cornell’s Nick Allen, eventually forcing a corner as Allen recovered on the run.

With 26 minutes to go in the first half, Leibold sent in his first shot, driving in from the left side to towards the middle. He sent in a strong strike, which went high and wide right. On another one of Leibold’s shots, SU almost quickly transitioned from one end of the field to the other just like it did against Virginia Tech, in which Leibold scored on the other end on the goal on Friday. Against the Hokies, Leibold notched four shots and the goal.

“I think Giona is an important part, they were trying to limit (him), trying to get bodies around him,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said.  “He’s direct. But Giona, if you can feed him balls, he’s a real handful in there.”

And on Tuesday night, the Orange had opportunities to give Leibold the ball. Goalkeeper Russell Shealy cleared the ball from his own box, sending it deep towards Johnson. Johnson flicked the ball on to Amferny Sinclair, who played a low-driven ball to the left side of the Cornell defensive half, but Leibold’s shot shanked, way off target. And a few minutes after that, Opoku passed the ball out-wide left to Leibold, who sent a low-shot right to Freiberg.

In the 72nd minute, Leibold had possession on the left flank waiting for attackers to get in the box. He sent in a high, back-post cross intended for Johnson, but it was misdirected by a Cornell header. Johnson pressured, getting the Orange a corner off of Leibold’s cross.

Leibold worked well with the forwards and Singelmann to generate opportunities on the left side, which appeared to be where the best offense developed. And when Leibold wasn’t in or involved in the play, Colin Biros and Curt Calov generated some attacks, too, especially when Syracuse conceded a penalty kick to trail 2-0 with under 15 minutes to go. 

As Syracuse became more desperate for shot opportunities, it developed more attacks as Cornell sat back with two-goal advantage. The Orange outshot the Big Red 16-10 and many more set piece opportunities, considering Cornell fouled 11 more times than Syracuse. 

But in the end, none of the opportunities developed by Leibold ended up in the back of the net that could’ve put Syracuse in a reasonable position to come back to tie the game. After Shealy cleared the ball deep which soared over multiple Cornell defenders, Leibold got on the end of the ball, sending a cross which was cleared. But Leibold didn’t trot back for the ball still in play.

“As we expected, (Cornell) came out with a lot of competence and knew they wanted to get something out of this game and we knew it was hard,” Leibold said. “This wasn’t our best performance today.”

Published on October 4, 2022 at 10:56 pm

Contact Cole: colebambini@gmail.com | @ColeBambini