Syracuse head coach Phil Wheddon slammed his water bottle against the ground. Alexis Koval turned her back from the field and buried her face in her hands. Orange teammates cried out in frustration.

SU was penalized for a foul inside its box that granted Pittsburgh a penalty kick. The Panthers’ Roosa Arvas shot the ball to the bottom-right corner, and Syracuse goalie Courtney Brosnan dove the same way.

But Brosnan couldn’t get a piece of the ball, which slipped by for the goal. As Brosnan got up from the grass, she pounded the ground.

After playing solid defense for nearly 85 minutes, the Orange (4-5-3, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) surrendered the game’s only score in a 1-0 loss to Pittsburgh (5-6, 1-2 ACC) at SU Soccer Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Syracuse controlled the ball, but couldn’t capitalize on its chances. The tied score put the Orange at risk if its defense made a costly mistake, which it did.

“There’s nothing you can do about that,” Wheddon said of the penalty kick.

Junior Taylor Haenlin, SU’s most reliable defender, played her best game of the season, Wheddon said. As a central defender, Haenlin cleared away almost all of Pittsburgh’s chances that went through the middle, with either her feet or head. The Panthers only took two shots in the first half as Syracuse dictated the pace of the game.

The penalty kick that the Orange allowed was the only mistake in an otherwise clean game for the defense.

“We really shut them down,” Brosnan said. “I thought except for that one play, they didn’t really have too many opportunities. So I thought we were pretty good today.”

With the defense playing at a high level, Wheddon said the only way his team would lose would be if they allowed a goal on a set piece, which it did.

The Panthers’ only legitimate scoring chance in the first half came off a free kick in the 22nd minute. Arvas shot the ball toward the top corner of the goal but Brosnan leapt up and tapped the ball above the crossbar.

Set pieces have been an issue for the Orange. In the past five games, SU has allowed three goals on three set pieces and the fourth on the penalty kick that lost it the game.

During the flow of play today, Syracuse stopped everything else.

“I guess we just got to stay on top of it mentally,” Brosnan said. “We can’t have little lapses like that to allow the PK. I think we do that pretty well, just split seconds that aren’t good for us.”

The Orange’s defensive success was in part due to playing with four defenders instead of three. Earlier this season, SU played a 3-5-2, but Wheddon has recently made the switch to a 4-3-3. The change shifts a midfielder to defense, which eliminates space for the other team’s forwards.

Erin Simon and Maddie Iozzi played as outside midfielders in the 3-5-2, but played as outside defenders on Sunday and sent numerous passes in the air to Syracuse’s forwards.

“I’m just trying to generate a little offense out of the back and be more dangerous out of the back,” Simon said.

On all parts of the field, Syracuse’s defense turned in a spotless performance. But one mishap was mixed in.

Said Wheddon: “We limited them to non-threatening opportunities, so this one hurts.”

Published on September 28, 2014 at 6:24 pm

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