The Syracuse men’s soccer team was on the ground, in disbelief of what just happened, the opportunity that it let slip away.

Forward Kyle Hall walked around in a daze with his hands on his hips. Midfielder Geoff Lytle bent down on one knee until senior Pete Rowley came over to lift him up and hug him. Justin Arena, Raoul Meister and Kenny Caceros collapsed to the ground, Arena and Meister with their faces in the grass. They didn’t move, the ball getting past goal keeper Robert Cavicchia had taken the life out of them.

The Syracuse men’s soccer team battled No. 5 Connecticut for 100 minutes in a scoreless tie. It couldn’t make it to 101 minutes.

UConn’s O’Brian White’s ended all hopes of an upset with a header that gave the Huskies a 1-0 win in front of 1,114 fans at the SU Soccer Stadium.

‘It just sucks to play that hard, to play that well and not get a goal,’ said forward Spencer Schomaker. ‘That’s pretty much what was going through my mind. How can that happen?’

The Orange was coming off a 3-0 win over No. 22 Providence Friday night and was looking to make it two straight wins over ranked opponents. Syracuse felt the outcome didn’t justify how it played.

‘Oh, I definitely believe we outplayed them,’ said junior Tom Perevegyencev. ‘I mean we played one of our best games today. We gave it all today out on the field. It just didn’t work out.’

UConn was active from the onset, but SU responded. The Orange outshot the Huskies 14-3 from the 20th minute to the 53rd minute. At times, Connecticut’s keeper Josh Ford needed to make miraculous saves.

Perevegyencev set the team up for its best scoring opportunity in the first half, juking three defenders along the right side of the net to set up Isaac Collings in the middle for a one-timer. Ford made an outstanding save preserving the scoreless tie. It was something he didn’t have to do last year against Syracuse. In Storrs, Conn., last year Ford didn’t have to make a single save. The Huskies attempted 24 shots to the Orange’s two.

Ford’s job seemed to get easy as the game went on. After peppering Ford through the first 53 minutes, the roles reversed down the stretch. The Huskies outshot the Orange 6-3 in the final 47-plus minutes.

‘I think it’s just the fatigue factor,’ said head coach Dean Foti. ‘You’ve got to manage your personnel so you can get through these games. Especially the second game in three days, it’s tough to manage for any team.’

The Orange seemed to change strategy toward the end of the game. Syracuse kept at least four defenders on its back line even as the ball was crossing into the midfield. The defenders seemingly wanted no part of an offensive strike until a flurry of Syracuse shots with less than a minute in the first overtime. At times, Schomaker was the only forward in UConn territory, as ten others protected the goal.

With the exception of the last minute of play in the first overtime, the ball primarily stayed in the Orange’s half of the field. Foti and the players though said it had nothing to do with strategy.

‘Yeah they were in our half but they didn’t produce any dangerous situations,’ Perevegyencev said. ‘They produced one header off a corner but we saved that.’

The players said they felt like they missed an opportunity to knock off one of the nation’s best, but in time, they will build off this type of performance. Even in the loss, Foti and his players agreed it was their best performance of the year.

‘I said we wanted to win the game and we’re disappointed,’ Foti said, referring to what he told his team after the game. ‘But if we can produce this kind of soccer for as long as we produced it then 99 percent of the time, you’re going to come away with a better result than we got today.’

Even if this was SU’s best game, the scoreboard still read 1-0 in favor of the Huskies. The players fell to the ground for a reason – they felt their best was better than the UConn’s best.

‘Games like these are pretty sad for us you know,’ Perevegyencev said. ‘It’s just we were the better team, and they got away with it.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on September 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm