ITHACA, N.Y. — Flanked by two sophomores with a knack for highlight-reel plays, Louis Cross isn’t going to stand out often. While Miles Robinson makes physical tackles and Kamal Miller darts around with the ball at his feet, the middle piece of Syracuse’s back three blends in. Until he stands out for the wrong reason.

That wrong reason seldom comes, but Tuesday night it arrived via a misread ball over the top for Cornell’s George Pedlow. The mistake gave a team that hadn’t won in seven games an early lead over a team that hadn’t lost or tied in the same number of matches. Cross sprinted to the net to retrieve the ball and launched it back toward midfield while Cornell celebrated what Syracuse didn’t see coming.

“Honestly it was just a bit of a mind blip,” Cross said with a chuckle. “… A bit of a textbook finish from them. Moaning, sulking about it isn’t going to do any good so you just wanna get the ball, regroup again.”

Luckily for the Orange’s unblemished record, though, all it amounted to be was a “mind blip” for Cross. He shed his early miscue in favor of a stellar remainder of the game to shut down any chance at a Cornell comeback. The Big Red (0-6-2) only registered one shot on net the entire game – the goal – and succumbed to an unrelenting attack from No. 2 Syracuse (8-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) in SU’s 3-1 win on Tuesday night at Charles F. Berman Field.

“A blunder … that happens to everyone,” midfielder Oyvind Alseth said, “and Louis showed character to come back and played a great game after it happened.”

Since transferring from Akron following his freshman season, Cross has played with bigger names and bigger bodies than his own. His sophomore year it was Skylar Thomas and Jordan Murrell — two current professionals — accompanying Cross on the back line before Tyler Hilliard displaced Cross in the starting lineup. Last season, Robinson and Miller burst onto the scene and became the high-profile freshmen that filled the void of the departed seniors.

All along, Cross has been right there as the steady presence that doesn’t rack up the numbers his fellow defensemen do. In 2016 alone, Robinson has three goals and an assist and Miller has a pair of assists, while Cross has a lone assist to show for eight games.

“You could say I fly under the radar,” Cross said, “but at the end of the day I think I do my job defensively.”

On Tuesday, that job consisted mainly of winning balls in the air when Cornell’s mammoth-like midfielders took flight. Twice in succession early in the second half, the 6-foot-1 Cross rose above 6-foot-3 Christophe Gerlach and 6-foot-3 Jack Ferguson to send the ball the other way.

In the latter part of the second half, when Cornell mustered its only resemblance of an offensive threat, Cross won two more headers within seconds of each other on Big Red crosses. Both exited the 18-yard box without causing any danger.

“He’s a senior now that’s played a lot of college games and he provides us composure,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said. “He doesn’t get flustered, does he?”

Cross has always been relatively soft-spoken. His play mimics that: calm, composed and hardly flashy.

And on the last line of a team off to the best start in program history, that’s exactly what Cross needs to be.

“Yes, he’s got some horses around him but he’s an important piece of stopping the other team,” McIntyre said. “He’s a vital piece of what we’re doing back there.”

Published on September 20, 2016 at 10:38 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman