The Huskies rallied around Jada Konte, who strutted on the turf at SU Soccer Stadium in celebration after scoring UConn’s third goal in five minutes. The Orange gathered around midfield for the ensuing kickoff, but a dejected demeanor hung over Syracuse.

SU (1-1-0, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t turn around its poor defensive play, continuing to allow UConn (1-0-1, 0-0 Big East) to find the back of the net in its 6-0 loss. The Huskies had six different goal scorers. Head coach Nicky Adams was not happy with the performance, but gives a lot of credit to UConn for their intentional approach.

“I thought UCONN was 100% intentional with its plan and it worked,” Adams said. “They capitalized on every major mistake we had and they capitalized with a goal.”

The first goal came in the 21st minute, when Jessica Mazo took the ball from a throw-in and chipped it over goalie Sierra Giorgio and multiple defenders. It hit the crossbar and just passed the white line for a goal.

Two minutes later, a corner kick ricocheted off multiple players around the penalty box before spinning out to a perfectly-positioned Emma Zaccagnini. She immediately struck the ball, keeping it low to the ground and past a diving Giorgio to take a 2-0 lead.

“We gotta be better in front of our net,” Adams said. “That’s actually something we’ve been really good with our last two games, the amount of blocked shots and bodies in front of the ball, we haven’t given up a lot.”

Konte scored from distance not three minutes after that, sending the ball over the head of Giorgio. Konte was well outside the penalty box, but she fired a perfect ball over the leaping goalie.

Adams said she was surprised at how the Orange’s defensive mentality collapsed, most likely because of a slow start on both sides of the ball. The team has committed to an aggressive defensive identity that was evident in its first match, but the energy didn’t reciprocate on Sunday.

“We are trying to really swarm teams and put them under pressure and not give them time on the ball,” Adams said. “But today we were really just solo everywhere instead of working together to win the ball.”

In the 34th minute, Giorgio saw that there were no defenders home, so she tried to come up and smother the ball close to midfield. The ball landed near Chioma Okafor, who put on the brakes and side-stepped to avoid the falling goalie. She sent the ball into the open net, extending UConn’s lead to 4-0.

The fifth goal came off another corner kick, this time from Cara Elmendorf. Elmendorf lofted the ball into the penalty box, allowing Abby Jones to pop it into the SU net. Finally, the only second-half score came from another breakaway, this time by freshman Maddie Carroll, increasing the Huskies’ lead to six.

Syracuse has an extremely young team this season, featuring 19 freshmen and sophomores out of 29 players. With an incredibly inexperienced group competing in a tough conference, Adams said there was a valuable learning experience on how to deal with bad losses.

The Huskies started just one underclassman on Sunday along with 10 juniors and juniors. Adams said the gap in experience played a major factor in UConn’s ability to capitalize on Orange mistakes.

“I think we had plenty of moments where we capitalized on their mistakes, but you saw the difference in experience when they put it in the back of the net and we didn’t,” Adams said.

Giorgio, the sophomore goalkeeper, let in all five of the Huskies’ first-half goals while collecting just one save in 28 minutes. She was replaced by freshman Shea Vanderbosch at halftime, who racked up five saves and only one goal allowed in the second half.

The starting goalie, Michaela Walsh, exited with an injury early in the first half after taking a knee to the stomach while attempting a save. She stayed in for a while, but eventually decided to come out in the 17th minute. The first goal was scored just four minutes after her departure.

On the other end, Syracuse’s offense got 13 shots off, yet only five of them were on goal. Adams said that inaccuracy is “unacceptable,” adding that creating open shots and scoring goals will be the focal point of practice this week.

“You can create and create, but you aren’t going to win the game if you don’t capitalize on it,” Adams said. “We have to be fearless in front of the goal and we have to punish teams when we have the opportunity, and that’s what UConn did.”

This loss was reminiscent of last year’s team that went 0-10 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Adams is trying to get the team out of that losing mentality and set new expectations. She said that today was definitely an eye-opener for the Orange, but they will be better off for it in the long run. She wants the team to train like they are playing a UConn-type opponent in every game.

“This doesn’t define us, it’s a reflection time to look at us as individuals and examine our own game,” Adams said. “We as individuals just need to be sharper and hold each other accountable.”

Published on August 21, 2022 at 6:33 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu