Courtney Brosnan kneeled with her hands on the ground at the side of the goalpost. Maddie Pack put her hands over her head and Jackie Firenze beckoned for her teammates to regroup as they paced around with looks of shock and frustration.

Louisville forward Isabella Habuda had just gathered a pass off a Syracuse turnover near midfield and streaked toward the SU goal. She took two long dribbles before launching a shot high over Brosnan and into the back of the net.

“I think it’s (frustration),” Syracuse head coach Phil Wheddon said of the team’s reaction. “We’re so much better than what we’re showing at times. And for us, our season has really been … a game of two halves.”

Syracuse couldn’t catch up to Louisville (6-5-1, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) after conceding a goal 13 minutes into the contest. Despite gaining momentum as the game wore on, the Orange (4-8-1, 0-4) ran out of time in a 1-0 loss at SU Soccer Stadium.

Wheddon called Syracuse’s early play frantic and said his team gave the ball away too much.

“Sometimes we have a tendency to come out a little flat,” Pack said.

Syracuse looked out of sync early. In the 23rd minute, SU forced a pass back down the sideline instead of turning and looking up the field.

Later, Natasha Tcheki-Jamgotchian tripped over the ball while trying to make a pass and fell awkwardly on the ground. Assistant coach Kelly Lawrence walked away from the sideline before returning and pointing up the field to get Tcheki-Jamgotchian’s attention.

“We struggled a little bit in the first half connecting passes and just playing simple,” Brosnan said.

By the time the first half ended, Syracuse was down 1-0 and still looking for its footing.

“It takes us 45 minutes to get going,” Wheddon said. “I mean we concede goals in the first half and then in the second half we turn it up a notch. We just can’t wait around for that to happen.”

Syracuse was often stuck either forcing the ball into difficult windows up the field or passing it back toward its own goal. Multiple times the sideline shouted and waved to move the ball in the other direction.

Pack said Syracuse didn’t play “clean.” Hesitant passes, poor shot selection and soft balls led to turnovers and lack of possession. At halftime, she said the coaches called the execution “inexcusable.”

“We challenged them to change it and make things better and connect passes, which I thought they did in the second half,” Wheddon said. “The problem is, you go down one-nil in the first half and you’re chasing the game.”

SU’s back line buckled down in the second half. Brosnan came up with two saves and punched away a corner kick in a defensive stand in the 70th minute. And with under 15 minutes remaining, Alana O’Neill slid in to block a Louisville counter attack.

Still, it was another slow start that Syracuse couldn’t overcome.

“It’s not that we don’t have the ability,” Wheddon said. “It’s just, maybe we need to try something different in the warm-up or give them a pot of coffee or something before they go out in the first half, I don’t know.”

Published on October 4, 2015 at 4:40 pm

Contact Matt: mralex01@syr.edu