Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.

With Syracuse’s defense on the move, Creighton used the formula that had worked for it not just in this College Cup match, but in every match this year — get the ball to Duncan McGuire.

He scored nearly a third of the Bluejays’ goals during the season and had put the ball in the back of the net more times than anyone else in the country. After the Orange made another clearance, McGuire still lurked in the box because the Bluejays retrieved the ball and midfielder teammate Jackson Castro lined up for another long pass.

Castro’s kick sailed over every SU player in the area, perfectly lined up for McGuire to score on a header. But the Orange’s Abdi Salim fiercely marked McGuire, getting his right foot on the ball as Creighton’s leading scorer got his head on it. The ball lofted over the net, without keeper Russell Shealy having to dive.

The Bluejays (13-5-6, 3-3-4 Big East) were still successful in getting the ball over Syracuse’s heads (18-2-4, 5-1-2 Atlantic Coast), registering three more shots than the Orange during the game and scoring twice. But with critical substitutions from head coach Ian McIntyre, the backline remaining physical and some key stops by Shealy, the Orange survived the nation’s top attack in a 3-2 win. The high-scoring victory puts Syracuse in its first College Cup final in program history.

Creighton head coach Johnny Torres promised “fireworks” earlier in the week. It seemed fitting. The Bluejays had the highest-scoring offense in the country with 63 goals and Syracuse had the 15th-best attack with 46 scores.

“It’ll be a fun match to watch because both teams like to attack and attack with numbers,” Torres said last Tuesday. “I don’t think you’ll see anybody sit back and try to absorb.”

From the opening kickoff, the Bluejays made their strategy perfectly clear as Creighton’s Giorgio Probo attempted a long pass into Syracuse’s half. But midfielder Giona Leibold cleared the ball and the Orange escaped their first over-the-top attack from the Bluejays. But Creighton then tallied five shots (four of them from McGuire) in the first 15 minutes.

Dominic Briggs entered from the right side of the box after an SU turnover. His cross deflected off of Salim, now giving McGuire an open look. McGuire’s light shot got past Shealy, but Amferny Sinclair was on the goal line and kicked the shot away.

“We knew we could create those opportunities, it was just a matter of time before they started to fall,” McGuire said.

At the moment, Syracuse was doing enough to make key stops. Later in the midfield, Charles Auguste found McGuire, who streaked down the left side. But McGuire, who had a step on his defender, took a shot that sailed over the net. A minute later, a long throw-in from Olu Oyegunle led to an SU turnover and gave McGuire another opportunity for a shot.

McGuire had a one-on-one matchup with Christian Curti. He moved to the right and took a hard shot at the top corner of the box, but his shot was deflected by Shealy, hit the crossbar and floated out of bounds.

To counter the Bluejays’ strong start, McIntyre brought in Jackson Glenn to replace Lorenzo Boselli. Glenn, the junior midfielder that saw some action in only 12 matches, was brought down to the backline, morphing SU’s standard 3-5-2 formation into more of a 4-3-3 formation at times.

McIntyre said that the SU coaching staff was worried about the pockets of space in the midfield that were being created for Creighton. He pointed to how the Orange having two attacking midfielders in the starting lineup — Boselli and Kocevski — led to more open creases for the Bluejays.

But Glenn “nullified” some of Creighton’s chances as the first half wore on, stealing the ball away from the Bluejays and setting up crosses to Leibold. With Curti’s header goal off of a corner, Syracuse entered the half keeping the Bluejays’ attack scoreless.

“I thought there was a chance we could really use him,” McIntyre said. “And I thought maybe as a wingback.”

But as McGuire said, it was only a matter of time. Not even five minutes into the second half, McGuire got one touch before Salim tackled him. But as McGuire was falling down, he got the final tap at the ball and with Russell Shealy out of the net, it rolled into the net, knotting the score up at one apiece.

In response to Nathan Opoku’s goal in the 50th minute, the Bluejays would score again off another long pass. This time, it came from a Callum Watson throw-in that pinballed to Alfie Pope, who scored Creighton’s second goal of the night. The teams played the next 22 minutes tied at two.

“Creighton is so far the best team we’ve played…it was a tough one,” Opoku said. “But I think at the end of the game…you have to keep pushing because everyone has tired legs.”

With Creighton playing much more directly and bypassing the SU midfield, the Orange moved up defensive midfielder Sinclair. McIntyre noted the absence of Buster Sjoberg, a staple on the backline during the regular season, when discussing the decision to move Sinclair up.

Even early in the second half, the Costa Rican was holding serve in one-on-one matchups against the Bluejays. Three minutes before halftime, Sinclair tracked down Briggs in a race for the ball and made the hard tackle in SU’s half of the pitch.

The harder tackles started to take a toll on CU. While defender Jake Ashford was still sending in high passes to teammates like McGuire and Alejandro Maillet, the opportunities were petering out.

And as Levonte Johnson scored the game-winning goal with less than five minutes remaining, the Bluejays grew desperate. There were corners and even more long balls for Syracuse to stop and it did. With less than a minute left, Castro set up McGuire for another header.

But as McGuire was on the move, his header was placed poorly and the ball fell right into the gloves of Shealy, who tucked it away and watched the time tick down.

“It was great to see two teams just slogging and getting after it today,” McIntyre said. “And thankfully, we found a way thanks to the toughness of our team.”

Published on December 9, 2022 at 11:29 pm

Contact Henry: henrywobrien1123@gmail.com