Syracuse demonstrates discipline in ACC Tournament win over VT
Syracuse’s disciplined play on both sides of the ball helped secure its victory over Virginia Tech in the opening round of the ACC Tournament. Joe Zhao | Senior Staff Photographer
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It’s no secret the Atlantic Coast Conference is one of the most competitive realms in college soccer.
Members of the conference have claimed three of the past five national titles and have also taken part in five of the past six Final Fours. Thanks to the championship standard recently set by programs like Syracuse and Clemson, the battle for ACC supremacy is now more intense than ever. So is the physicality, a factor that’s helped and harmed SU numerous times across its 2025 campaign.
Toward the end of the Orange’s regular-season schedule, their lack of discipline came back to bite them on multiple occasions.
It started against Pittsburgh, when a foul less than eight minutes in gave the Panthers the lead off a penalty kick. A few days later, against Cornell, Syracuse saw its one-goal lead disappear due to another penalty-kick goal, which gave the Big Red enough of a boost to jump ahead and steal the match. Then, in SU’s regular-season finale, NC State’s highly-touted attack punished it with a score from the spot early in the second half.
If SU wanted to avenge its first-round loss last season, it needed to flip a switch — and fast.
Faced with strong wind and rain in its ACC Tournament First Round matchup with No. 11 seed Virginia Tech (7-4-5, 2-3-3 ACC), Syracuse (8-6-3, 4-3-1 ACC) did just that Wednesday night. Falling into just 12 fouls and not a single yellow card, the Orange maintained a controlled level of physicality from start to finish, helping them to a 2-1 win over the Hokies.
“You never want to give away free kicks and stuff like that and provide a referee to make those calls, but overall I thought we were fantastic today,” SU head coach McIntyre said postgame.
Unlike most of Syracuse’s conference opponents this year, Virginia Tech didn’t pose much of a physical challenge. Most of its success in 2025 came from finding ways to evade its opponents and beat them with set pieces or speed alone, rather than outmuscling them in the trenches.
“We’re not really a physical team. You look at our statistics in terms of fouls, yellow cards and all that, that’s not really what we do,” Virginia Tech head coach Mike Brizendine said postgame.
The Hokies’ gaffer was right. Entering its matchup with SU, VT’s 11.75 fouls and 1.63 yellow cards per game both ranked 11th in the ACC. It was also just one of four teams in the conference yet to receive a red card.
That didn’t stop Virginia Tech from pestering Syracuse early on. In just the fourth minute, Declan Quill was assessed the match’s first foul to set up a free kick for the Orange. Then, SU fell into four straight fouls over the next 12 minutes — a familiar feeling. At that point, it seemed Syracuse was just moments away from being burned by a costly foul.
Tim Brdaric calmed the waters. Off a corner kick by Carlos Zambrano, the graduate student netted his third goal of the season with a diving header into the left side of the goal. But it didn’t take long for the Hokies to come up with a response. In the 41st minute, Joao Felicio worked the ball along the left side of the box and sent a cross over to Quill at his right.
Because of the defensive lapse, Syracuse went into the locker room tied at one — but it wasn’t for a lack of discipline. The Orange notched seven fouls in the frame compared to the Hokies’ four, a margin that had been much more pronounced in most of their recent contests.
Out of the break, SU continued to push VT into one-on-one battles, forcing it to turn the ball over or mistakenly loft it out of play multiple times. McIntyre credited his team’s ability to push the Hokies into relentless restarts as an essential part of its success Wednesday night.
“The way that we play with our intensity and our physicality, there’s going to be those moments. We defend from our frontline all the way through to our midfield guys to our defenders, (so) there’s going to be one-on-one moments,” McIntyre said.
Through controlled aggression, Syracuse allowed Virginia Tech to take fouls as the second half continued. In the 57th minute, VT’s Amir Ariely was even shown the first and only yellow card of the match — a sign the squad’s frustration was starting to boil over into desperation.
Following Brdaric’s second tally in the 63rd minute, the Orange committed to holding their slim lead down the final stretch — something they’d done the entire regular season versus both conference and nonconference foes.
No longer relying on a makeshift backline, McIntyre dropped five players in front of Tomas Hut, knowing Virginia Tech would throw numbers at the net until the final whistle was blown. At the same time, he also substituted in two of his young guns in Santiago Frias and Landon Darko in the 76th minute, confident their legs were fresh enough to fend off VT’s desperate attempts to draw even. The decision paid off.
“We changed our formation and brought in a couple guys, plus at that time the field’s heavy. Our guys had been battling and running around. We had a lot of guys cramping up. It was a big moment for some of our guys,” McIntyre said.
After last season’s swift exit from the ACC Tournament, Wednesday’s victory gave Syracuse reason for celebration. However, there’s still plenty of work to be done. Faced with a much tougher test in a rematch with No. 3 seed NC State Sunday, the Orange will need to pull off a monumental upset to stay alive.
Continuing to play a clean brand of soccer may give them the edge to do so.
