Matt Schneidman@matt_schneidman 8h8 hours ago
Drove a hefty while and covered a Syracuse second-half onslaught. My game story from No. 2 SU's 4-0 win over UConn
http://bit.ly/1qqq2ak
No. 2 Syracuse uses second-half spurt to run by Connecticut 4-0
Syracuse celebrates a goal in its 4-0 win over Connecticut on Tuesday night. The Orange and Huskies were close in the first half before SU scored three goals in a 10-minute span at the start of the second.
Courtesy of The Daily Campus
Syracuse celebrates a goal in its 4-0 win over Connecticut on Tuesday night. The Orange and Huskies were close in the first half before SU scored three goals in a 10-minute span at the start of the second.
By
Matt SchneidmanAsst. Copy Editor
9 hours ago
STORRS, Conn. — Earlier in the game, a Connecticut fan yelled at Syracuse forward Emil Ekblom “give your sister back your headband,” after Ekblom fell down. The crowd had continually heckled SU goalkeeper Alex Bono.
But by the 59th minute, they were barely audible.
The Orange scored three goals in 10 minutes to put the game out of reach for the Huskies, who had the majority of the chances in the first 50 minutes of the game.
No. 2 Syracuse found the back of the net four times in the second frame to turn a once-back-and-forth game into a 4-0 blowout at Joseph J. Morrone Stadium on Tuesday night. Chris Nanco, Tyler Hilliard, Skylar Thomas and Noah Rhynhart each got on the board for the Orange, which has scrapped for one-goal wins all year, coast to a victory.
“It deflated the crowd, didn’t it?” head coach Ian McIntyre said. “That second goal, and then a third one, they lost the edge from their home support. When you can do that, when you can quiet a crowd down, it makes it a little easier on the pitch.”
The game didn’t start out in the visitors’ favor, though, as Bono was forced to shank a clearance out of bounds and away from an onrushing forward just a minute in. Then Vanacore-Decker’s free kick peppered the woodwork and a Sergio Campbell header sailed inches wide of the left post.
The Orange had its fair share of chances courtesy of Korab Syla, who McIntyre said could’ve won man of the match in his second start, and Julian Buescher, who curled two free kicks inches over the crossbar.
But a seemingly different team trotted out of the visiting locker room to start the second half.
With less than five minutes gone after the break, Hilliard sent a diagonal cross toward Nanco from midfield. UConn goalkeeper Scott Levene seemed to call off the center back Campbell, but Campbell backed off and Levene stayed on his line. Nanco pounced on the ball and chipped it over an outstretched Levene to break the deadlock.
“I just gambled on it,” Nanco said. “It was a miscommunication between the center back and the goalie and it ended up getting through and I was right there for it.”
Less than four minutes later, Hilliard slotted home a muffed Huskies’ clearance off a corner kick. Five minutes after that, Thomas poked in a rebound inside the 6-yard box off another corner that the hosts were unable to clear.
A 0-0 game was suddenly a three-goal lead, and Connecticut Goal Patrol slowly filed out from behind Bono.
“I thought we came out pretty flat, we just knuckled down,” Murrell said. “I told our boys to relax and we got a few goals.”
Noah Rhynhart buried a goal in the bottom-right corner of the goal with eight minutes to play for his first strike of the year, adding an exclamation mark to a foregone conclusion of a game.
Menacing slide tackles no longer littered the pitch, Nanco wasn’t being swung at by Campell and Ekblom wasn’t being chopped down by Huskies defenders.
The team that was ranked at No. 2 in the nation earlier Tuesday showed why, as Nanco put it, “it was about time” that SU gave itself a cushion.
Said McIntyre: “Second half, I thought we were outstanding, some of the best stuff we’ve played all year.”
