Syracuse mens soccer: Orange suffer historic defeat in 6-1 thrashing at Clemson

Following an early red-card, the Orange looked lost on all fronts against the reigning National Champions.

The Syracuse Orange men’s soccer team (6-6-3, 1-4-2) suffered a historic 6-1 loss after being ripped to shreds at #3 Clemson on Friday night. In their final regular season away game, this match represents a new low on the season for the Orange on multiple fronts.

The loss is the largest margin of defeat the Orange have seen since their 5-0 loss against UConn in Storrs in 1998. This result came well before any member of the current SU squad was even born. With this baseline, the result also represents the Orange’s largest defeat since joining the ACC in 2013, and Head Coach Ian McIntyre’s largest defeat since joining the program in 2010.

The Orange have suffered mightily on both ends in the ACC in recent weeks. In their last two ACC games, Cuse is 0-2 with nine goals conceded and one scored. The Orange’s NCAA Playoffs are now firmly in the bin, with the only chance for escape being an unlikely and miraculous run to win the ACC Tournament.

The match started to go downhill for Cuse two minutes in as a beautiful ball from Joran Gerbet sent Alex Meinhard free to speed past the Cuse defense and slot the ball into the bottom corner.

Although the Orange were able to work their way back into the game over the next few minutes, things truly fell apart 15 minutes in, when Michael Acquah was shown a questionable red card following a video review for elbowing his opponent in the face.

The Tigers certainly smelled blood at this point, piling the pressure on the SU defense with the lion’s share of possession. A brilliant one-two between star freshman Wahabu Musah and Remi Okunlola in the 25th minute doubled the Clemson lead.

From here on, the game was wide open as Cuse tried to gamble for a goal but were often locked up and suffered greatly from the man-down advantage. Meinhard scored again off a set piece, then made it a first-half hat-trick after squeezing the ball past Tomas Hut in the 33rd.

After winning a penalty in the 35th minute, Ezra Widman slotted home for his first goal in Syracuse colors, but what should have been a celebratory moment was dampened by the context of the game.

Just after halftime, Tyler Trimnal found the goal off a header from a set piece, making SU’s situation even more hopeless. Domination and another Clemson goal saw out the second half for the Tigers in a marquee victory for the side who have not beaten Coach McIntyre’s men in two years.

This embarrassing result for the Orange begs many questions of the program. The team will see their win percentage dip below 0.500 with a loss against Pitt, and regardless will be suffering their worst season since the 2021 campaign. This will leave many questions for Coach Mac on how to get the team back on track. Luckily for Cuse fans, he had seen and stepped up to this challenge before.

Following this difficult result, the Orange will play their last regular-season match of the campaign on Friday, November 1st, at the SU Soccer Stadium against #5 Pitt. Stay tuned for updates on that game and more SU Soccer content as the team heads into the ACC Tournament.