Lost the Game But Not Hope

Story and photo by Jiayang Zhang

Syracuse, N.Y.

The rain that had been falling on and off finally stopped at some point during the second half. But a clear Thursday night only got colder.

“Final score: Virginia Tech - Five, Syracuse - Nothing.”

People scattered in the bleachers folded up their blankets and started leaving. Big smiles stayed on the faces of people wearing hats and hoodies with two big letters “VT” - they came to the SU Soccer Stadium to support No. 14 Virginia Tech. The Hokies had wrapped up their night by scoring on a penalty kick in the last minute.

“We really needed this game tonight,” Ed Tiernan said. As the father of VT leading scorer Murielle Tiernan, he has been to every game of her daughter, even scrimmages. Murielle scored the first two goals for the Hokies tonight. “”We just came off a bad loss, and the girls were really upset... My daughter was in tears last week... I think they came out really ready to play... Syracuse picked the bad night to get attacked.”

On the north side, silence swallowed the bleachers. Supporters shared in a tough night for the Syracuse University women’s soccer team. But not everyone knew what this latest defeat meant to the team.

The Orange’s losing streak grew to four games and the scoreless drought has continued for 360 minutes. The last time the Orange allowed five goals without scoring any was five years ago at Connecticut in 2009. The last time SU had a bigger failure at home was the 8-0 loss against Notre Dame in 1997.

This team made history tonight, but not in a way its members want.

 

Aftermath

The only ones left on the field were SU head coach Phil Wheddon and several SU players who were requested for post-match interviews.

“We had four letdowns in the first half, four lapses of concentration inside the goal area,” Wheddon said. “This league is just so unforgiving. You can’t give up those types of chances.”

While the score did not reflect it, he Orange had come out much more aggressive for this game. It had five shots in the first 25 minutes, almost as many as the total number (six) of shots in the last three games. But none of them were dangerous enough to escape the goalkeeper. The closest chance was Stephanie Skilton’s shot in the 14th minutes, which hit the left post.

The Hokies only had two more shots than the Orange in the first half, but they turned four of them into goals. Virginia Tech’s leading scorer Murielle Tiernan scored twice in five minutes.  Candace Cephers and Shannon Mayrose contributed the other two goals in the first half.

Going into the second half, Wheddon told the players to ignore the score and play out with pride. He changed the formation from 4-3-3 to 3-4-3 to add more pressure on the offensive side. 

Aside from the penalty kick near the end, the Hokies did not score in the second half. They only took three shots.

“This group fought hard if you look into the second half,” Wheddon said. “I just asked them to reproduce our second half for 90 minutes on Sunday and 90 minutes against North Carolina. Because if we play like that all year round, results would be different.”

This result, however, was not acceptable to the players.

“As a forward, I feel disappointed because I let my team down by not scoring,” Skilton said. “...Having a lot of new freshmen coming in has been difficult (for us) to adjust as a team...We played really well tonight, the score just does not fit our performance.”

Goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan stayed until the end, sitting beside the entrance of the field. Her head lowered, eyes fixed on the ground. The black brace still wrapped around her right knee. The doctor said she should keep wearing it to make sure her ACL is fully recovered from the injury which tied her to the bench for nearly half a season.

When reporters came to Brosnan, she raised her head and stood up. Her lips were purple, her voice was trembling, her eyes watered with tears. But she held them back.

“It’s kind of hard letting them any goals,” Brosnan said. “… Besides those few minutes, I thought that was one of our best performances this season. We really played as a team. So it’s kind of hard to see us giving up so many goals.”

“Going into the half, we had our heads down,” Brosnan said. “But we did a quick turnaround to get our heads up, just to get out there and do the best we can to come back.. I think we did that pretty well even though we didn’t get a goal. But we did the best we can.”

Wheddon waited until Brosnan finished the interview, then talked to her and her mother, who drove four hours from New Jersey to see her daughter’s game. It was a private conversation. But Wheddon did say something more than once during his post-game interview.

“I’m very proud of them.”