High school soccer: Syracuse hands Herriman its first loss of the season

After starting the season 3-0, the Syracuse Titans were shocked at home last Tuesday by Ridgeline in a 1-0 loss. It was a game that Syracuse head coach Jason Steiner felt his team should’ve won.

Its preseason schedule didn’t get any easier, as Syracuse had Region 2′s Riverton and Herriman scheduled in back-to-back games. The Titans rose to the challenge and beat Riverton 4-0 and beat Herriman on the road 2-1 on Tuesday.

Syracuse’s win over Herriman marked the first loss for the Mustangs so far this season.

“That’s what we asked the girls to do,” said Steiner. “Once you get smacked in the face, how are you going to respond?”

Syracuse certainly found its response in Abby Affleck.

The Titan’s defense held strong to open the game and their offense made sure to take advantage. In the 15th minute Affleck scored to take a 1-0 lead.

Syracuse played with a lead for most of the first half, but Herriman broke through right before halftime. The Mustangs’ Brooke Rasmussen stepped back for a corner kick in the 38th minute and got it to go in.

Despite playing a strong defensive half, Syracuse found itself in a 1-1 tie at halftime.

But if there’s one thing this Syracuse team has learned to do this season, it’s how to play through mistakes.

“I think our team’s really good at learning from our mistakes and learning what we can do better and fixing it for our next game,” said Affleck. “In our practices we focused a lot on like the mistakes we had made previously. So, we’re able to really focus in.”

It took the Titan’s less than three minutes to recover from its mistake.

In the 43rd minute Affleck came through again with a goal that was placed just below the top crossbar. Affleck said the mentality of this year’s Syracuse team has already improved since last season.

“Last year we kind of had a rough run, and this year we decided that no matter what we weren’t going to give up,” Affleck said. “I think it shows because we gave up a goal in the last two minutes (of the first half), and at halftime, no one was angry with each other. We just knew we played well in the first half, and we could do it again.”

This time the Syracuse defense was not keen on allowing another last-minute Herriman goal and it held on to take the 2-1 road win.

Steiner said the Titan’s defense is what stood out to him the most in Tuesday’s win.

“I’m super proud of our defense because we’ve been trying different things and that’s where we’ve had the most turnover,” said Steiner. “We played Ridgeline, and we did only let one in, we’ve had a few shutouts and we only let one in here. So, they’ve been doing really good at doing what I’ve asked and once we shore that up going forward, we should be good.

Syracuse moves to 5-1 on the season and it will end its non-region schedule against West Field next Tuesday. The Titans will open its in-region schedule with an away game against Farmington on August 29.