2021 Syracuse men’s soccer season preview

The Orange open this evening with the Drexel Dragons at home.

Another season is upon us for the Syracuse Orange men’s soccer team. This one won’t be a split season like the prior (unfortunately), which was altered due to the pandemic. This one’s just a regular old season in which the Orange trot out a side that has to compete in the meat grinder that exists in the ACC for soccer. Here’s a little preview of what Coach Ian McIntyre will be looking to work with through the season.

Schedule:

The Orange have some difficult non-conference matches this season in addition to the mess of the ACC. They have to travel to State College, PA and face No. 10 Penn State on the road as well as host the preseason No. 5 ranked Georgetown Hoyas at home the next week. The ACC starts with five teams ranked, four of them in the top eight of the polls. The Orange get to face two of those teams on the road (No. 3 Pittsburgh and No. 6 Wake Forest) and host another (No. 8 Clemson). Games to circle on the home calendar are the opener August 26th against Drexel, the aforementioned Georgetown match on September 3, Louisville of September 17th and the Clemson match on October 23rd.

Last Season:

The Orange finished the really odd 2020 split campaign with a 2-7-4 record, and were 0-6-3 in ACC play. That looks bad. A lot of the games were single point contest or much closer than the scorelines indicated. The team loses forward Luther Archimede (NY Red Bulls),wide players Simon Triantafillou and John-Austin Ricks as well as stalwart defender Sondre Norheim after stellar careers in Orange.

Roster Moves:

This year is a bit of a whole sale overhaul on the Syracuse roster, similar to the 2015 season. Overall coming in are tenfreshmen and five other transfers to a roster that got quite a jumpstart.

• Freshmen: Francesco Pagano, Zephyn Brockert-Kress, Jack Anderson, Aidan Arber, Parker Kump, Curt Calov, Michal Gradus, Giona Leibold, Olu Oyegunie and Julius Rauch
• Transfers: Luke Biasi (Memphis), Camden Holbrook (Appalachian State), Buster Sjoberg (Wofford), Lucas Daunhauer (Kentucky Wesleyan), Christian Curti (Marist), Max Kent (Macalester), Colin Biros (Akron)

Season outlook:

Look to a good number of these names to get some serious run, judging by the preseason games. Overall it was a wild preseason, with the Orange having a match and a half cancelled due to COVID and lightning. Not at the same time, of course. They were able to grab a 1-0 win on the road at Rutgers and an 11-0 thrumming of NJCAA Herkimer. During those, you saw some familiar faces in the starting lineup, with Russel Shealy in goal, Amferny Sinclair as the holding midfielder, Jeorgio Kocevski as the eight and All-ACC preseason pick DeAndre Kerr leading the line. There will be some returning names that fans will recognize in Hilli Goldhar on the wing, Julio Fulcar in the midfield, Noah Singlemann and Abdi Salim in defense.

Some of the new names getting a run-out were transfers Sjoberg, Curti and Kent along the back, Biasi and Holbrook on the wingbacks/wide midfielders and Biros along with freshman Rauch on the wing. During the Herkimer match, freshman Gradus and local product Pagano both had a brace, with Calov also scoring.

All in all Mac will need to find a good mix of these names for the team sheet, as the Orange open up the season tonight against the Drexel Dragons at 8pm at Syracuse Soccer Stadium. The opener will also be streamed on ACC Network Extra in the ESPN app.