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In the 15th minute against Lafayette, Syracuse’s Erin Flurey poked through an approaching defender and gained possession to set up a shot, but the other team deflected the ball out, leading to the first corner of the match.

Kate Murphy launched the corner, bending the ball as goalkeeper Natalie Neumann prepared for an Orange header. The ball kept curving and orbited around Neumann. Before she realized that she mistimed her jump, it trickled in the back of the net. Syracuse gained a point, but this wasn’t the play the team trained for.

“That’s not what we plan to do,” midfielder Ashley Rauch said.

While Syracuse has generated 35 corner kicks through four matches, it has run into issues converting. Despite being third in the Atlantic Coast Conference in corner kicks, the team has only converted on 6% of them. This includes going 0-for-13 against New Hampshire and 0-for-10 against Siena. 

“Set pieces is something we pride ourselves on, ” head coach Nicky Adams said. “We’ve been creating a lot, but we haven’t really gotten too many of them (in the net).”

Syracuse started the season missing its first 17 corners until finding success against Lafayette. Later in the same match, Murphy struck again — this time as planned. Murphy’s kick curved farther from the goalie allowing Flurey to jump in for a header. 

While Syracuse seemed to have fixed its struggles from the corner, the team hasn’t scored on one since. The Orange couldn’t connect on their next four against Lafayette and missed all ten against Siena. 

Emma Kelly | Design Editor

During the match against the Saints, the two teams clashed near the center circle until Murphy got possession and dribbled down the left sideline. She hit a massive cross to the center of the box where Siena eventually kicked the ball out of bounds, setting up another SU corner from the left side.

As the corner approached, Siena defenders boxed out the Syracuse players and the ball bounced off of a Saints players’ head. The Orange were out of position and the ball hit another Siena player, landing out of bounds on the right side of the goal. 

Later in the match, Murphy had another from the right side of Siena’s zone. She delivered a ball towards the center of the goal box. Flurey set up just to the left of the penalty box and appeared like the play was going to be  a repeat of the goal against Lafayette. 

Flurey jockeyed for position and jumped up to head the ball, but it deflected off the right goal post and stayed in bounds. Chelsea Domond won possession and tried for another shot, but missed. 

Adams said her team can’t convert on some of these opportunities because they’re in the wrong position on the set piece. But Adams is encouraged that her team is constantly creating chances.

“We want to put the other team under pressure and we got some speedsters this year to do it,” said Adams. “I think being able to turn a team around (with speed) to face their own goal is causing problems and creating these opportunities.”

The Orange have about two weeks to capitalize on these chances before they begin a stretch of 10 straight ACC games, starting Sept. 16th against Duke.

“We’re getting better, better and better,” Adams said. “Everybody is just so coachable and we’re throwing so much at them in such a short period of time, but they’re handling it like pros.”

Published on August 31, 2022 at 10:47 pm

Contact Matthew: mahassan@syr.edu