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CARY, N.C — When Amferny Sinclair buried the Orange’s eighth penalty attempt, it didn’t just signify Syracuse’s first-ever national championship. It was a vindication of years of work from Ian McIntyre and a host of former players, who couldn’t contain themselves after Syracuse’s win.

Syracuse won just five games in McIntyre’s first two years. In 2015, it seemed as though they put it all together, winning the school’s first ACC title and making the College Cup, where they ended up on the other end of a penalty shootout to Clemson in the semifinals.

But it was a long road back.

They didn’t advance past the first round of the NCAA Tournament again until this year. In 2020, they only won two games. Seven were canceled due to COVID-19.

“I think it was needed to be in those moments,” senior and team captain Sinclair said. “When you’re really on the bottom, you learn a lot, you learn to work hard and to just get yourself through it… Coming from those tough situations, we learned all that and when we needed to play in big games, we just took everything we learned on the path all the way to here.”

Even this year, Syracuse was not expected to be much of anything. After spending much of the 2010s as a regular in the NCAA Tournament, Syracuse hadn’t made it since 2019, and only three players remained from that squad.

They began the year unranked, picked to finish fourth in the ACC Atlantic Division. But that couldn’t have been more wrong. The Orange handily won the Atlantic Division and proceeded to cruise through the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament – only the second ACC team to ever win the treble and the first since UNC in 2011.

“I can’t sit here and say in the beginning of the year or even a few months ago [we’d win],” McIntyre said. “The boring answer is I had no idea we’d win a national title… we deserve to be here, and it’s not by accident.”

Expected or not, the Orange started the season hot and never cooled down. They stayed unbeaten for the first eight games of the year, tying the 2016 squad for Syracuse’s best start ever. They only lost two games all year, one on an 85th-minute UVA game-winner after playing the majority of the match down to ten men. The other was against Cornell, where Big Red scored two “soft goals” on a penalty kick and an own goal. After October 4, they didn’t lose a game on their way to a program-record 19 wins.

But even before beating Indiana in the most dramatic way possible, the Orange pulled out several nail-biting victories. Levonte Johnson’s counter-attacking goal in the 86th minute against UNC in the ACC Quarterfinals, Russell Shealy’s performance in a penalty shootout win over UVA the following round, and Leibold’s 83rd-minute sprint against Cornell in the NCAA Sweet 16 come to mind.

Ultimately, they played the toughest teams in the country and were beyond worthy champions. SU finished the year No. 1 in RPI and 9-2-2 against teams who made the NCAA Tournament.

But when Sinclair finally ended the marathon against Indiana, it was a catharsis for Orange teams past who had fallen short, most notably the 2015 squad.

“Losing on pens is the worst thing ever,” said Matt Stith, who played and coached for Syracuse from 2011-2015. “But winning is the best thing ever. Russell saved two pens! They gotta name a street after this guy.”

According to both Stith and McIntyre’s postgame press conference, former players flooded the team with messages.

The Syracuse soccer group chat of former players was going ballistic, Stith said.

“They really won it.”

“This is so crazy.”

“We did it.”

Players from all eras of Syracuse soccer offered their congratulations. Ryan Tessler, who was recruited by previous coach Dean Foti in 2009, even chimed in.

“I thought my group was amazing. I thought Kamal’s group was amazing,” Stith said. “These guys just won the ‘chip. There’s nothing better, there’s nowhere more to go.”

After the game, Giona Leibold stood silently on the pitch. It’s going to take a few hours to soak in, he said. Buster Sjoberg, the rock of Syracuse’s backline before a late-season injury, called it surreal.

Jukka Masalin, McIntyre’s longtime assistant, cried. He said it’s hard to even think about the 2015 loss and the pandemic year. “We’d have taken one trophy this year,” he said, “but three?”

“Two years ago we won two games, and now, national champions,” Sinclair said. “Life’s like that sometimes.”

Published on December 12, 2022 at 11:58 pm

Contact Connor: cpignate@syr.edu