For 45 minutes, Syracuse was in complete control. The Orange repeatedly attacked Washington’s goal and rejected any ball Washington tried to bring into its box.

But when the game ended, the Orange suffered a frustrating 2-1 loss.

“The feeling is the team right now feels like they were robbed a little bit,” said SU head coach Phil Wheddon. “They finished and we didn’t, we’ve got to learn.”

A crowd of 357 watched the Orange (1-1-1) lose its first game of the season. The opening few minutes foreshadowed what was to come in the second half, with Washington controlling the tempo early. Then, Cecilia Borgstom took a shot at the Washington goal before her teammates followed suit as the SU offense outshot the Huskies 7-2 in the first half.

But the Orange’s offensive effort fell short.

In the 27th minute, the Huskies’ defense broke when Alexis Koval scored her first goal of the season off of a cross played by Hanna Strong.

With the score 1-0, the Orange only got more aggressive and took shot after shot. Meanwhile, the best Washington could muster was long through balls, which often lead to turnovers.

When the second half kicked off, Washington again took control. This time, there was no offensive surge by the Orange.

Instead, the Huskies had the firepower. After 15 minutes of back-and-forth play in the middle of the pitch, Washington found the net in the 63rd minute with a goal from Stine Schoening.

“I think Washington actually upped their game in the second half, they moved the ball quicker, they were more dangerous, more mobile up front,” Wheddon said. “Washington is a very good team and they’re well-coached. I give them credit for coming back into the game.”

With the Washington offense finding its groove, goalie Kari Davidson made a spectacular save in the 70th minute, only to deflect another shot a few seconds later off the rebound.

Those close calls might have been the last chance SU had to win the game, as Isabel Farrel scored a few minutes later to put the Huskies ahead for good. For the rest of the game, Syracuse’s offense shut down.

The Orange never got a shot off in the final 10 minutes of the game.

Hope flickered for a moment when it looked as though an SU player was fouled in the box. But play continued on, to the dismay of the crowd.

With the clock winding down, the Orange continued to try to create opportunities with the ball, but never managed to do so.

Despite the loss, Wheddon said he still feels confident about his team.

“I feel great about my team. We’re a young team,” Wheddon said. “I’m excited about where we are. We had talked about it, about continuing the way we had started, so we were really comfortable in what we were doing.”

Washington took five shots to SU’s 11, but capitalized on those opportunities while the Orange failed to on theirs.

“I think they countered on our lack of making mistakes in the back,” said SU midfielder Hanna Strong. “We had good opportunities, none of our shots were way off so I think we should’ve put those in the back of the net.”

Alexis Koval, who scored the lone goal for SU, said Washington created better scoring opportunities.

“Our shots were surrounded with five of their players and, for them, they were wide open so they had the advantage with those,” Koval said.

Washington beat the Orange with set plays ― something Koval said the team needs to improve on defending moving forward.

Said Koval: “It comes down to set pieces and that’s one of our weaknesses and we got to step it up there and work on that in practice.”

Published on August 27, 2012 at 1:13 am

Contact Jack: jstruitt@syr.edu