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All Syracuse needed was a whistle.

The Orange couldn’t muster up any momentum in the first half of their Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Semifinal matchup with SMU. They trailed 1-0, but halftime could’ve provided them a desperately-needed reset.

Instead, with under 50 seconds to play until the whistle, Charles-Emile Brunet played an incisive ball into the left channel. Mustangs wingback Jaylinn Mitchell ran onto it, drove to the byline and laid a pass across the 18-yard box. Ryan Clanton-Pimentel sprinted to the back post and tucked it away.

“Goals change games, and that second goal right before halftime … we deserved to be behind, but that second one hurts,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said.

It was far from the last goal the Orange gave up, but it was the most decisive. It exemplified Syracuse’s most fatal defensive issue all game long — failing to contain the wingbacks. And it came from two faces SU will want to forget.

The Orange (9-7-3, 4-3-1 ACC) fell victim to monster performances from SMU’s (10-4-4, 3-2-3 ACC) wingbacks in its crushing 5-1 ACC Championship Semifinal loss. Mitchell and Clanton-Pimentel combined for five goal contributions, preventing Syracuse from reaching its first ACC Championship title game since 2022.

“They’ve got pace, they’ve got athleticism, and they really caused us problems,” McIntyre said.

Syracuse has built its brand off man-to-man defense this year, often putting its fullbacks into one-on-one duels on the wing. The philosophy stifled wingers, especially against one of the ACC’s top fullbacks in Chimere Omeze. Even with Ernest Mensah Jr. unavailable in recent games, the Orange had no problem defending potent attacks in the ACC this season.

Still, SMU head coach Kevin Hudson knew it was an area the Mustangs could operate efficiently. They just had to approach it differently.

Hudson said Syracuse’s man-to-man approach always leaves a defender open on the opposite side. SMU just had to switch the ball to the open defenders, who could either feed it to the forwards or distribute to the wings. He also told his wingbacks to focus on driving the ball inside and forcing SU’s fullbacks out of position.

“As soon as both Ryan and Jaylinn could dribble inside, they could play a pass, and then the next vertical run from them was on,” Hudson said. “Both are really dynamic, they’re really good on the dribble. They want to take players on.”

That was evident three minutes into the match. After Brunet was fouled by Kristjan Fortier, he took the free kick quickly to the left flank for Mitchell. Mitchell pushed forward toward Omeze, then cut inside from about 40 yards out before Sachiel Ming took him down from behind. It resulted in a decent free kick look that ultimately yielded nothing.

Ryan Clanton-Pimentel leaps in the air to celebrate his goal. Clanton-Pimentel’s goal put the Mustangs up 2-0 over Syracuse at halftime. Courtesy of Atlantic Coast Conference | Photograph by Jaylynn Nash

Fourteen minutes later, Mitchell received the ball on the wing, faked a pass inside and chopped past Omeze to the touchline. He carried it into the box before his cross was stabbed away by Tim Brdaric.

The pressure was building on the left, though. Thirty-eight minutes in, SU’s defense finally broke.

Mitchell received the ball at midfield and played a ball centrally to Alex Salvo. Mitchell sprinted past Omeze on the left, received a pass on the overlap from Salvo and drove into the box. He left a short pass for Mukisa Emmanuel, who smashed a shot past Hut to open the scoring.

“It took us a while to find the goals, but I thought we were on top of it from the start,” Hudson said.

The Orange were down, but not out. Then, Mitchell set up Clanton-Pimentel on a deep run for the second goal. It sucked the life out of Syracuse.

“One of the things that we say is that you have to finish runs all the way into the six,” Hudson said. “To see Ryan score that goal with a deep run, from wingback to wingback to score a goal, it’s a pretty special moment for us.”

A 2-0 halftime deficit meant Syracuse had to change its shape in the second half to push forward. It led to more time and space for the Mustangs’ pacey wingers.

That was most evident on the Mustangs’ fourth goal. Salvo recycled a ball in midfield and played it wide to an unmarked Clanton-Pimentel. Kelvin Da Costa tried to track him down on the right wing, but the sophomore’s cross found the foot of Stephan Soghomonian — the Mustangs’ leading scorer — who found the bottom corner on the volley.

SMU had the game won far before the fifth goal, but it gave Clanton-Pimentel a chance to add to his highlight reel. He took on Gavin Wigg on the right, shifted his body outside and dusted the graduate student with a clever touch inside. Unmarked on the right, Clanton-Pimentel played a ball across for Landon Hickam, who slotted it in.

“In those wing back areas, they set up to really push on their central defenders,” McIntyre said. “Specifically in the first half, and then in key moments, they’ve got wonderfully dynamic players and they got on top of us.”

It wasn’t necessarily a stroke of tactical genius from Hudson. Simply put, the Mustangs relied on their wingbacks to win one-on-one battles against a team that’s built to prevent that.

They did so in dominant fashion. And it resulted in Syracuse’s most crushing loss of the year.

Published on November 14, 2025 at 12:53 am
Contact Harris: harrispemberton@gmail.com | @HarrisPemb6