For over an hour and a half Saturday, the Syracuse men’s soccer team practiced corner kicks. After struggling with those kicks against St. Bonaventure on Wednesday night, the Orange hoped to avoid such a repeat Sunday when it hosted Adelphi.

Yet for as long as the Orange spent working on certain situations in practice, nothing seemed to come to fruition during games.

Syracuse converted on only one of 10 corners against Adelphi on Sunday and wasted numerous other scoring opportunities in a 2-1 defeat at the Syracuse Soccer Stadium.

‘We had a lot of good chances,’ Syracuse senior Ryan Hickey said. ‘We failed to execute. It hurts, but we just have to realize it’s only the second game of the season. Guys are walking around like it’s the end of the season right now.’

The Orange is winless so far this season, losing two games at home for the first time since 2000. After struggling to generate scoring opportunities last season, Syracuse had plenty of opportunities to score Sunday.

The problem was finishing.

Syracuse outshot Adelphi, 13-9, and dominated the game in chances. But Adelphi’s few counterattacks produced goals and left Syracuse bewildered.

Tal Sheinfeld netted the game-winner for Adelphi (1-1) in the 73rd minute on a Dieudonne Nonga feed. Nonga found a little bit of space deep in the Syracuse end and passed back to Sheinfeld, who knocked the ball into the left-hand corner of the net for the winner.

‘Generally in a game, you only get two or three really good chances,’ Hickey said. ‘If you can put one of them away, that’s good. We had about six or seven good chances that we could have made good on.’

Because SU controlled so much of the action, Hickey felt the players focused on putting away shots and not enough on defense. That led to a few breakdowns in defense, and, ultimately, the difference in the game.

Syracuse took the lead in the 15th minute on Isaac Collings’ first career goal. The redshirt freshman took the initial kick on a corner and curled it into the far post. Collings said he was trying to put it in position to either be headed or, he hoped, go directly into the net. The latter worked for him, and gave the Orange a lead for the first time all season.

That goal also illustrated how the Orange is struggling with corners. On a few of its attempts, Syracuse refused to set up the ball directly, passing first off a corner and hoping to generate a chance without putting the ball directly into the box.

‘Come game time, coach can’t be on the field with us,’ Hickey said of failing to capitalize on corners. ‘We’ve got to make decisions, and it’s on us.’

Adelphi tied the game with 1:09 left in the first half on a goal by Matt Smith. Nonga set up Smith with a pretty feed on the right edge, and Smith beat SU keeper Rich Sheer to knot the score at one.

‘We had our chances,’ Collings said. ‘We have to focus on getting them on goal and giving the goalie a chance. We easily could have won this game.’

Published on September 6, 2004 at 12:00 pm