Riding 3-game win streak, Syracuse has finally found its scoring touch
SU men’s soccer has completely turned its season around with three straight wins. The Orange notched six goals in the three matches. Griffin Uribe Brown | Social Media Editor
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Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre compared scoring goals to waiting for the bus. Sometimes, you’ll wait for hours with no sign of their arrival. Then they all seem to turn up at once.
The same problem plagued SU in the first half of the 2025 season — it simply couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. In their first six games of the campaign, the Orange averaged half a goal per match and didn’t score more than one goal in a game. No McIntyre-led team had ever scored at a slower pace.
That all came to a head in SU’s final two games before Atlantic Coast Conference play began. The Orange dominated both Duquesne and New Haven statistically — outshooting them by a combined total of 39-6 — but failed to score in each contest. Syracuse fell to the Dukes 1-0 and produced a scoreless draw with the Chargers.
So when McIntyre stood in front of the media following both games, he knew what questions were coming and understood why.
“At the end of the day, we’re in a results business. We haven’t won a game at home. Your questions are all valid,” McIntyre said after playing Duquesne. “We’ve got some good attacking pieces, so it’ll come. We’ll get there.”
McIntyre’s optimism may have felt like false hope at first, as SU went on a four-game winless streak through most of September. But since then, the goal-scoring bus has arrived, and with it, Syracuse has completely turned its season around.
Since Sept. 23, the Orange (5-4-2, 2-2-0 ACC) won three consecutive matches — two of which were in conference play — to launch them from the bottom of the table to eighth place in the ACC. Syracuse has found its scoring touch at the right time, scoring six goals in its last three matches and eight in its last five.
“A few weeks ago, everyone talked about us in a different way,” senior midfielder Giona Leibold said. “Now, we’ve started to win some games and started to figure out that we’re actually a good team. We’re going to compete in this league.”
The metric that best personifies Syracuse’s chance creation is expected goals (xG), a statistic that measures the number of goals a team should statistically score based on the quality of their chances. In SU’s first six games of the year, it severely underperformed in that category.
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The Orange posted 1.68 xG, per Sofascore, in their season-opening 1-0 loss to UConn. In its matchup with Loyola a week later, SU had 3.38 xG but scored just once. The Orange had 3.92 xG against Yale, where they — again — only scored once, and 2.72 xG in their 0-0 draw with New Haven a week later.
Excluding its 1-1 tie with Penn State on Aug. 28, Syracuse statistically had better scoring chances than its opponent in each of its first six games. Still, it sat at 2-2-2.
“Our performance merited a result, but unfortunately, our quality didn’t,” McIntyre said following the New Haven game. “That’s the nature of certain sports, right? You can have a lot more shots in hockey, sometimes soccer. This is why our game can be so painful at times.”
Yet, in what was SU’s most painful moment of 2025, the tide began to shift.
While the Orange eventually lost a heartbreaker 3-2 to then-No. 8 Stanford on Sept. 13, Syracuse was efficient in the attack for the first time all season. SU posted 1.69 expected goals but converted both of its two shots on target. It was the first time Syracuse scored multiple goals in a game this season.
The result wasn’t enough to make a positive impact on the standings, but its offense was beginning to show signs of life.
“Our guys had doubts. Can we play in the ACC against that caliber of teams? The answer is, I think, wholeheartedly yes,” McIntyre said after losing to Stanford.
Though the Orange couldn’t score in a road defeat to then-No. 19 Duke the following weekend, they finally broke through at home against Colgate.
Carlos Zambrano’s eight-minute second-half hat trick lifted the Orange to a much-needed nonconference win. It was the first time in 14 games SU posted three goals in a match, and the first time in six years a Syracuse player recorded a hat trick. The Orange again outperformed the numbers, posting three goals on just 1.69 xG.
The momentum led into SU’s next ACC matchup against Cal, where defenders Garrett Holman and Chimere Omeze’s goals propelled it to a 2-0 victory. Both came off throw-in set pieces and were assisted by fellow defenders.
That offensive support is common for Syracuse. Just five of SU’s 11 goals this year have come from attacking players. Three different defenders and two defensive midfielders have found the score sheet, too. As long as the ball hits the back of the net, the Orange don’t care where it’s coming from.
In SU’s 1-0 win over Boston College on Oct. 3, the idea was emphasized. McIntyre made a bold choice to start freshman Bryson Rodriguez in attacking midfield, giving the Costa Rican his second career appearance. It paid off in the 66th minute, when he rose to redirect a Leibold cross into the top left corner, giving Syracuse a second-half lead it never relinquished.
In their first six games, the Orange didn’t score in the second half. In their last three matchups, all six goals came in the latter 45.
“We haven’t put together a 90-minute, dominant game, but we’ve had lots of good moments,” McIntyre said after defeating BC.
Syracuse’s defensive performance isn’t to be understated, either. The Orange have turned in three consecutive clean sheets for the first time since September of their title-winning 2022 season. But SU’s backline has been its strong point all season. Now that the attack is finding its footing, the two phases have complemented each other perfectly.
SU still plays SMU on Saturday, the fifth-place team in the ACC, but the remainder of its conference schedule is manageable. The Orange take on last-place Pitt before closing the year against seventh-place North Carolina and ninth-place NC State.
A month ago, it seemed the wheels were falling off McIntyre’s bus. Now, it’s time to climb aboard as it embarks on a wild ride toward the top of the ACC.
