Ian McIntyre is fully aware of his team’s inability to put the ball in the net last year. And being shut out in the first game of the 2011 season didn’t erase the memory.

After failing to score in a 1-0 loss against Colgate on Saturday, the Orange enters the second game of the season searching for both its first goal and its first win of the season.

‘That anxiety and nervousness was evident for the first game,’ McIntyre said. ‘But I think now coming back and playing on our home field, I’m looking for the guys to express themselves.’

But McIntyre feels that this year will ultimately be different. And despite there being a little déjà vu in the season opener, McIntyre believes the Orange (0-1, 0-0 Big East) has more attacking options this year. Enough, he said, to play an exciting brand of soccer as the season wears on — ideally starting with Thursday’s game against Canisius.

McIntyre is not ready to give into the notion that his team lacks offensive firepower. It was only one game and the first game of the season at that.

Plus, SU has even more new faces than last year. Syracuse has 19 newcomers this season, compared to 12 returning players.

If the Orange plans on improving upon last year’s uninspiring 2-10-5 record — a mark that looks even more disheartening when paired with the fact that the team scored multiple goals just once in 2010 — it will need to get back on track immediately.

That begins Thursday at home against a Canisius team that gave the Orange a tough test last year in a 1-1 double-overtime tie.

In reality, the team has everywhere to improve on offense. The Orange can start with gaining more possessions, junior midfielder Mark Brode said. Increase possessions and more opportunities will come.

And with more opportunities come more shots on goals, which ultimately lead to more goals scored.

It sounds simple, but the Orange made it look very difficult in 2010.

McIntyre echoed Brode’s acknowledgement of the need for clock management. But he also said the team needs to move the ball quicker. The Orange gave the ball away cheaply too many times in the loss to Colgate.

Suffice to say the team faces a lot of challenges in just its second game of the season. But that doesn’t deter McIntyre.

‘If it was one thing, we’d fix it and move on,’ he said. ‘It’s always both positively and negatively a number of things we’ll be working on. And we worked on them today in practice, and we’ll do the same again.’

There’s also communication, senior goalkeeper Phil Boerger said, and getting the ball into the forward’s feet.

Those are areas the team struggled with in the Colgate game and ones that the team expects to fix come Thursday. Syracuse failed to put a shot on net against a Raiders team it scored three goals against last year.

‘Hopefully, we’ll have more shots,’ Boerger said. ‘We only had three, I think, on Saturday with none on goal, so we’re definitely expecting a lot more offensive production.’

Thursday will be the first of eight home games for the new players and a chance to redeem a 5-1 season-opening loss at home last year. But they’ll likely need to score more than one goal to do so.

For Brode and his teammates, it’s important that the Orange get a win early in the season, especially for a team that had two separate six- and seven-game winless streaks last year.

‘Obviously, we’re doing better than last year when we lost to Siena 5-1,’ Brode said. ‘But we didn’t play well against Canisius last year, so it’ll be good for us to come out and get a result against them and get a little payback because we thought we were a better team. We just didn’t pull it off last year.’

To McIntyre, though, winning isn’t everything. If the team improves its offense and plays his style of soccer well, the winning will come eventually.

‘I guess in athletics we’re measured in wins,’ McIntyre said, ‘but if we take care of the small things and we take care of details and we play our style of soccer, we’ll get chances, and then with chances, the opportunity to win games.’

rnmarcus@syr.edu

 

Published on August 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Rachel: rnmarcus@syr.edu