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Seizing an opportunity in the 67th minute, Nate Edwards darted infield. He got in front of Binghamton’s Devin Heanue, looking to have him beat. While he had success throughout the game, his slight poke of the ball wasn’t enough.

Edwards, along with Giona Leibold, helped Syracuse (2-0, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) push past Binghamton (0-2-0 America East Conference) on Monday. Throughout the game, SU’s midfielders constantly looked for the two on the wings, using long diagonal balls played into space to stretch the Bearcats defense.

Edwards played an intricate part in Syracuse’s ability to get the scoring going against Binghamton. In the 28th minute, Mateo Leveque whipped a ball in from the left wing and Nicholas Kaloukian couldn’t make contact on a header. Instead, the ball fell to Edwards who tried controlling the ball with his chest. His touch got away from him with McDermott trying to close him down, but Edwards deflected it off McDermott and into the path of Gabriel Mikina. Mikina buried the shot to put Syracuse up 1-0.

Leibold was one of Syracuse’s top performers last season, scoring five goals and assisting two. With the attention on Leibold, his counterpart Edwards has been strong on the right. A transfer from Purdue Fort-Wayne, Edwards provides similar speed to Leibold. Syracuse uses the pair to get behind opponents’ backfields.

“Giona and Nate are two of the fastest players in the ACC,” Mikina said. “If defenders get too tight to them, we’re going to put the ball over the top, but they can also check away and come back in since they’re great with their feet.”

Mikina said having them on the wing is a blessing. He said that in addition to the pair’s speed, if defenders back off them and give them time, they can swing balls into dangerous areas.

Leibold did just that in the second half. A Leveque corner was only half cleared, falling right to Leibold at the top of the box. The junior placed a ball into an open area and found Josh Belluz’s head, who redirected the ball into the back of the net, putting Syracuse up 2-0 in the 56th minute.

Ian McIntyre said it was important to get the second goal, since it opened the game up in the latter stages. Edwards thrived with more space as Binghamton pushed to get on the scoresheet. Kocevski sprayed a ball out to Edwards who took a big touch, pushing the ball past Heanue. Edwards got to the ball first before Heanue took him out with a slide tackle that drew a yellow card.

On the ensuing freekick, Kocevski curled it into the six-yard box, where Lorenzo Boselli had gotten in front of his man. Boselli finished the header for his third goal of the season.

“The width helps our game a lot and stretches teams like Binghamton who try to keep everything compact and in the middle,” Belluz said. “The width really stretches teams out and that’s where a lot of our goals came from today.”

McIntyre credited Binghamton, saying they made life difficult by flooding the midfield and staying organized. McIntyre said they tried to create overload in the wide areas with quick switches to try and find openings in Binghamton’s defense.

“When you’re playing against tall players, you can’t play in front of them, you’ve got to try to get in behind them.” McIntyre said. “And when those balls came in from wide areas, then we caused them some issues.”

Published on August 30, 2023 at 12:35 am

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