With just 18 seconds left in regulation, Jon Gallagher dealt Syracuse its first blemish of the season. The Notre Dame forward’s left-footed shot from outside the box found the left corner past Orange goalkeeper Hendrik Hilpert, negating a Syracuse comeback and handing the Orange its first loss or tie in nine games this year.

The Orange gave away the ball in its own half and Gallagher found it at his feet before darting ahead and hammering the final nail in Syracuse’s coffin from 20 yards out.

“Oh look, we’re pretty low right now,” McIntyre said over the phone after the game. “It’s an emotionally draining way … when you put everything out there, when you emotionally put everything on the line … our game can be so ruthless. It’s gut-wrenching.”

No. 2 Syracuse (8-1, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) tied the game with just over 10 minutes remaining on Miles Robinson’s goal off a corner kick, but SU was unable to hold on in a 2-1 loss against the No. 3 Fighting Irish (7-1, 2-1 ACC) at UND’s Alumni Stadium on Friday night.

“Look, you never want to lose games,” McIntyre said. “We’ve come a long way as a program when we’re disappointed to go on the road and lose against an elite Notre Dame team with 30 seconds left. That’s a good problem. It’s good for us to come to an environment like this and expect to come away with results.”

For the second straight game, the Orange conceded first. Thirteen minutes after subbing in, freshman midfielder Jack Casey put the hosts ahead less than a minute before half off an Evan Panken free kick. On Tuesday night against Cornell, Syracuse was the benefactor of a Miles Robinson goal right before the break that proved to be the turning point in a 3-1 SU win. Three days later, the Orange found itself on the other end of the momentum swing heading into the half in its toughest test of the year thus far.

Out of the break, Syracuse’s attack generated far more of a threat than in the opening 45 minutes. Chris Nanco and Kamal Miller forced UND goalie Chris Hubbard into two saves, his only ones of the game, within 30 seconds of each other. Five minutes later, Sergio Camargo beat Hubbard with a low shot but it deflected off the post and out of harm’s way.

“We just imposed ourselves a little bit more,” McIntyre said. “Physically, we kind of pushed the ball forward a little bit quicker, worked extremely hard and connected passes in their half.”

It wasn’t until the 79th minute that Syracuse broke through, when Robinson got a head on Oyvind Alseth’s corner kick — one of eight Syracuse corners in the second half compared to Notre Dame’s zero — to knot the score at one.

Robinson’s goal was his fourth of the season, tying Nanco for the team lead. It’s his eighth goal in one and a half seasons with Syracuse as he continues to establish himself as one of the ACC’s premier threats in the attacking third, even as a defender.

The celebration lasted only 10 minutes, though, when Gallagher’s ACC-leading sixth goal of the season found the back of the net.

Two seasons ago, it was a freshman Gallagher that drew a red card on former SU center back Skylar Thomas with about 15 minutes left in the game to set up a free kick that would send then-No. 20 Syracuse to a 1-0 defeat against then-No. 4 Notre Dame at SU Soccer Stadium.

Two years later, it was Gallagher wreaking havoc again, this time sealing a fate the Orange hadn’t yet experienced in 2016.

“Look, it’s a wonderful left-footed strike to win a game. Obviously from our perspective it’s a disappointing way to end,” McIntyre said. “But it happened … Our feeling was that we were the team that was gonna go on and win the game.

“As difficult as this is, we’ll regroup, we’ll learn from it and hopefully we’ll continue to move forward.”

Published on September 23, 2016 at 10:15 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman