Syracuse’s Jamie Trimboli took a pass while darting in from outside the restraining box. Winding up a shot, he baited Army’s Ryan Sposito into stepping forward. He then shrugged the midfielder off and stepped further toward the cage. He pulled his stick back once again, out of the reach of another Black Knight defender and fired a shot while falling to the ground.

As the two Black Knights Trimboli made miss shook their heads, the SU midfielder ran to the Orange sideline where he was mobbed — knocking helmets with teammates and high-fiving coaches.

The senior had just scored his fourth goal of the game. His second in 59 seconds and third of the opening five minutes of the half.

Trimboli opened the scoring for Syracuse, dragged SU back from a 5-2 halftime deficit and later grabbed its first lead. After putting up its lowest offensive output of any half this season through the first two quarters, Syracuse clawed back on the shoulders of Trimboli. Second-half adjustments — inverting and spreading the offense — allowed the No. 5 Orange (3-0) to open space in the middle of the field and manufacture mismatches to overcome a suffocating No. 9 Army (3-2) defense en route to 9-7 win in the Carrier Dome Sunday. 

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Out of the locker room, Brendan Curry took the ball up the right alley and, after dodging wide, passed into the middle to an uncovered Trimboli. The senior cut Army’s lead to two just 30 seconds into the second half.

Syracuse had finally adjusted. Curry had the ball 20 yards from the Army net, but he doubled back to spread out the Black Knight defense. Army’s man-to-man forced the Orange to win one-on-one battles, and that’s exactly what Curry did, opening space and drawing a late slide to leave Trimboli alone in front. 

“We knew they were gonna press out, they have been doing it on film all year,” Trimboli said. “We just hadn’t gone against it so it was a little shock but we took the shock well.”

While Army’s game plan was predicated on slow, often non-existent, slides, the Orange slid on the catch to cover the Black Knights’ top attack, Brendan Nichtern. Brett Kennedy was tasked with the bulk of coverage duties in the absence of Nick Mellen, but Nick DiPietro often left his man to pressure Nichtern. While the close coverage prevented the 2019 30-goal scorer from finding the net more than twice, it allowed Nichtern to find open teammates.

With less than a minute remaining in the first quarter, Nichtern drew Kennedy and DiPietro to push up on him, leaving Sean O’Brien open at the side of the cage. While both SU defenders reached for the high pass, O’Brien snagged it, faked high, and bounced the ball under Porter’s stick. The ball beating Porter was a rare sight Sunday, though, as the Ontario native set a career high in saves (18), including nine in the first quarter. 

From the end of the second quarter, Porter and Syracuse held Army goalless for almost 15 minutes. But Army goals bookended the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter, and the Black Knights rebuilt a two-goal lead. 

Tucker Dordevic took the ball behind the net with nine minutes remaining. Sprinting and dodging from X, the redshirt sophomore skirted Army’s crease before turning and releasing a shot high and in. SU’s offensive shift was paying off. 

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David Lipka scored on an identical question-mark dodge 40 seconds later. A move that had resulted in shots high and wide from Griffin Cook all game finally worked, and it evened the score. 

The difference was the defender. While 5’7 Cook matched against one of Army’s poles all afternoon, Dordevic drew short-stick defensive midfielder Matthew Horace. The inversion — moving midfielders like Dordevic and Lipka behind the cage — exposed some of the largest offensive mismatches.

“In the second half we just kind of took a step back and realized that they weren’t going to come to us,” Trimboli said. “So it was up to us to beat our guy one-on-one.”

Trimboli didn’t have the same benefit of a positional mismatch — Army covered him with a pole defender, Black Knight coach Joe Alberici said. But it didn’t matter.

Less than a minute after his second goal, Trimboli cut down the middle once again. Even when a Curry pass was earmarked for Rehfuss it still somehow found a way into Trimboli’s pocket and soon later under Army’s Wyatt Schupler. Trimboli later finished off SU’s eighth goal, which put the Orange ahead for good. 

“We were telling our guys to shoot high,” Trimboli said. “But I was pretty stubborn and still snuck a couple low on him.”

The second-half adjustment put the game into the hands of Syracuse’s first midfield line. Every single SU score came from its midfielders. It was an adjustment that came after Syracuse’s attack failed to register a point in the first half. And while the attack stayed quiet, the midfield — and specifically Trimboli — showed up.

“Today was our day,” Trimboli said.

Published on February 23, 2020 at 3:21 pm

Contact Mitchell: mbannon@syr.edu