No. 7 Syracuse suffers 1st loss in 350 days, falls to unranked Cornell

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ITHACA, N.Y. — In the 77th minute, Cornell’s Kisa Kiingi floated a threatening ball into Syracuse’s final third. No defender stepped forward.

Gavin Wigg tried heading the ball away but awkwardly miscalculated its path. Kiingi’s pass made it through to Alex Harris in front of goal. SU goalkeeper Jason Smith tried to challenge for the ball but couldn’t get there in time as Harris slipped a weak effort into the goal. His second score of the contest gave Cornell a 2-1 advantage over Syracuse with a little less than 15 minutes to play.

“That’s a schoolboy error as we call it, you can’t let the ball bounce multiple times,” Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre said of Harris’ winner. “That will not be a nice one to look at when we go back and watch the tape.”

Harris’ brace boosted Cornell (3-2-0, 0-0-0 Ivy League) to a 2-1 win over No. 7 Syracuse (3-1-3, 0-0-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), handing the Orange its first loss since the two teams met on Oct. 4 of last year. Syracuse had previously gone 20 games unbeaten. Though SU jumped ahead in the first half, the goal was its only shot on target while Cornell totaled six.

Despite Cornell dominating possession early, Syracuse struck first in the 39th minute. A Syracuse corner was cleared to midfield, but Buster Sjoberg collected and sent a cross back into the box. Josh Belluz won the arial battle and flicked a header forward which found Felipe D’Agostini’s feet.

D’Agostini aimed a pass for Nicholas Kaloukian at the top of the box. With two defenders focused on Kaloukian, D’Agostini continued his run in behind and Kaloukian found him. A perfectly weighted ball allowed D’Agostini to get to it first ahead of Ryan Friedberg. With the angle closing, D’Agostini clipped it to the far post for the opener — his first goal for Syracuse.

“To have a player of his (D’Agostini) quality coming off the bench, it’s unbelievable,” Syracuse midfielder Jeorgio Kocevski said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy with the goal, despite the loss, but it’s good to see him on the scoresheet and get his confidence up because he deserves it.”

McIntyre said D’Agostini provides the team with “something special” and said earlier in the week that his best soccer is ahead of him. Although the goal was against the run of play, it gave Syracuse an advantage, heading into the break. But as it did against Wake Forest on Saturday, the Orange couldn’t hold on.

Seven minutes into the second half, Cornell tied the game up. A 50-50 ball led to D’Agostini trying to flick the ball past Wilson Eisner, but he intercepted, driving into space at the top of the box. Eisner released a low shot, which was pushed aside by Smith.

Kiingi was first to the rebound along the endline, finding Harris as he darted to the near post ahead of SU’s scrambling defense. Harris blasted a one-timer by Smith at his near post to level the game.

“We gave up some soft goals tonight,” McIntyre said. “You can’t do that when you go on the road to a team like Cornell.”

Neither team created anything clear cut until Cornell’s second goal of the game, putting the Big Red up late on.

Cornell was content with sitting on its lead as the Orange pushed forward for an equalizer. Syracuse tried playing through Nate Edwards on the right at times as well as D’Agostini on the left, but McIntyre still felt the Orange didn’t utilize wide areas enough.

McIntyre said his team looked “a little bit leggy” in the second half, recently coming back from their trip to Winston Salem for Wake Forest.

Syracuse nearly created something out of nothing in the 86th minute. Pedregosa threw the ball into Kocevski on the left side. With a defender on his back, Kocevski dropped his shoulder cutting inside while his man went the other way.

Kocevski sent in a perfect ball for Kaloukian, who found space in between two defenders to flick home a header. Syracuse’s elation was turned to disappointment when the linesman raised his flag for offsides. The Orange never recovered, falling to Cornell for the second straight year and suffering their first loss of the season.

“The ball didn’t bounce our way and maybe last year it bounced our way a few times,” McIntyre said. “Hopefully the ball bounces our way and maybe on another night maybe some things go our way.”