Men's Soccer

After conceding 1st goal for 2nd time all season Syracuse defense bunkers down in 2-1 win over Boston College

Hannah Wagner | Staff Photographer

Jordan Murrell stands up his man in Syracuse's 2-1 come-from-behind victory against Boston College Satuday night at SU Soccer Stadium.

It was a situation Syracuse has only found itself in one other time this season.

An opponent scored first, which Boston College did 11 minutes in, and SU found itself in an early hole.

“Literally, when it went in I thought to myself, ‘We’re still going to win this game,’” defender Jordan Murrell said.

Murrell was right, and the Orange defense stymied the Eagles’ attack for 92 minutes before defender Skylar Thomas won the game in the 103rd minute. The back three of Murrell, Thomas and Tyler Hilliard was stout after conceding early, and held off the Eagles just enough in No. 3 Syracuse’s (14-2-1, 5-2-1 Atlantic Coast) 2-1 win over BC (5-8-3, 1-6-1) at SU Soccer Stadium on Friday night.

“You don’t draw it up to concede the first goal,” head coach Ian McIntyre said. “This business end of the season, we will concede goals. It’s how we bounce back from that.”



After Diego Medina-Mendez’s cross snuck inside the right post and past a frozen Alex Bono, SU’s defense buckled down for 74 minutes, not surrendering any serious threats from the Eagles.

But with four minutes left in regulation, the hosts saw the game flash before their eyes.

BC forward Zeiko Lewis fired a shot destined for the bottom-right corner. The goal could’ve sent SU on the road for its first ACC tournament game, but Bono came up with a diving save with the tip of his left hand.

Then in the 102nd minute, Boston College forward Dylan Pritchard shanked a wide-open attempt wide right from 5 yards out after Bono got caught out of position. SU winger Liam Callahan applied just enough pressure from behind Pritchard to rush the forward’s shot and save the game, again, for the Orange.

“You take a big sigh of relief,” Bono said. “You kind of made a mistake on that one, but Liam came back and put some great pressure on him. If there’s no pressure, that’s an easy tap in and we lose that one.”

A minute and 13 seconds after Pritchard’s miss, Thomas tallied the game-winner and validated the effort that the back line and Bono had put forth from the 11th minute-on.

Thomas had repeatedly risen up to win headers over the smaller BC forwards. Murrell and Hilliard consistently won tackles and distributed to the midfielders and forwards with near perfection.

The back three that only allowed one goal in the first 10 games came back to life, and bided time for an offense that had a plethora of chances, to finally salvage a victory.

“They have a chance to knick it and secure a postseason berth and we go down the other end and then score,” McIntyre said. “There’s that fine line between winning and losing games at this level.”

Syracuse has conceded four times this month, against Albany, Wake Forest, Louisville and Bucknell. The opponent drew first blood this time and even had two other threats, but the Orange withstood, thanks in large part to the back three giving the offense time to salvage the winner.

“If they’re going to get a goal, we’re still hungry,” Murrell said. “We still had that much time and we knew we were going to get the goal.”





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