It’s Official: The 2024 Syracuse Men’s Soccer Season has come to an End
By Josh Richardson | @joshrichy_04
This was a fact that has been known for almost two weeks. Once Syracuse Men’s Soccer suffered yet another heartbreaking defeat against Wake Forest, the resume just wasn’t strong enough to propel the Orange into an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. The 2-1 loss to the Demon Deacons was the second of its kind for the Orange. Both games occurred in the exact same fashion: Syracuse scored first. Wake Forest scored back-to-back goals in less than a five minute span.
It’s so easy to have 20/20 vision after the season, but a 7-7-3 record did not accurately reflect how many contests SU should have or could have won that it didn’t. The loss to Le Moyne was inexcusable. The draw against Louisville when allowing a goal with under one minute to play simply can’t happen. Factor in the draw to Boston College when Syracuse held a lead, and a loss to Cornell when the score was tied in the final five minutes, this record COULD HAVE BEEN 9-3-4 heading into the ACC Tournament. That looks a whole lot better than 7-6-3. That alone could have been enough to make it to the national stage.
So where does this team go from here? It doesn’t start in June and July. It doesn’t even start in January once the season ends. It starts right now. It is so incredibly important for such a young team to acknowledge how close it was to being under the bright lights and that the core needs to stick together. Syracuse will lose 6 of its consistent starters. That’s only half the men on the pitch. With the quality of play from freshman Dom Bell, Braedon Smith, Kristjan Fortier, and of course Chimere Omeze, this program has a fantastic chance to compete at a high level next fall IF the team can stick together. This now falls on Head Coach Ian McIntyre and the rest of the staff to almost re-recruit some of these players. In today’s day and age of the transfer portal, anyone can leave at any given moment if they feel their name and brand and talents would be used better elsewhere.
Of those Syracuse is losing, they aren’t easy names to replace. Headlining it all is GK Tomas Hut. The keeper had an up and down season at times but finished strong with a clean sheet against Pitt. His main issue was on free kicks, a spot he gave up multiple goals this season, including the tying score against Louisville. In front of him, defenseman Andre Cutler-DeJesus, midfielders Sam Layton, Gabe Threadgold, and Elton Chifamba are tough to lose. But a program that returned just one starter last season will find comfort in the fact that as of now, it is in a position to bring back five.
The NCAA tournament begins on Thursday. Of the 48 schools represented, 9 reside from the ACC. It is no secret that the Atlantic Coast is one of if not the best conferences in the nation for this sport. Syracuse has 365 days to get back to being a program that gets called on Selection Sunday
