How Sweet It Was! Rembering SU's 1985 BIG EAST Championship
9/22/2010 8:33:10 AM | Men's Soccer
On September 25, Syracuse will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its 1985 BIG EAST Men's Soccer Championship prior to the team's 6 p.m. game against Pittsburgh at the SU Soccer Stadium. In addition, members of the 1985 squad will be recognized on the field at the Carrier Dome just before the Orange's 3:30 kickoff against Colgate. Tickets for the football game are available online (click here) and at the Carrier Dome Box Office (1-888-DOMETIX). Admission for the soccer match is free.
When the men's soccer team takes the field this Saturday, after three weeks on the road, they'll open up BIG EAST play with a little extra support in the stands. Players from the 1985 men's soccer team will be returning to their alma mater to be honored for winning the BIG EAST Tournament championship, 25 years after the historic season that saw the Orange defeat Connecticut to win the conference tournament.
In 1985, Syracuse was coming off a successful 1984 season that saw the team post a 14-5-2 record and make the program's only appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Orange started 1984 with seven straight wins and achieved the highest-ranking in program history (sixth). However, the team's regular-season success didn't translate into the postseason. Connecticut bested the Orange in the BIG EAST Tournament and Hartwick ousted the team in the opening round of the national tournament.
While the 1984 campaign had no storybook ending, it set the stage for what was to come in 1985.
“We only lost one senior going into '85, and we were ranked sixth in the country in '84, [having] lost to UConn in BIG EAST Tournament. We were fired up about the start of the season,” said Erik Miller Sundsted, a junior on the 1985 team.
The biggest challenge for the players as they started the year was adjusting to their new coach, Tim Hankinson. For the previous six seasons, the Orange had been led by Alden Shattuck. During Shattuck's tenure, he guided the Orange to winning seasons in five out of six years, won the 1982 BIG EAST Tournament championship, and secured the school's first and only NCAA Tournament berth. Following the 1984 campaign, Shattuck left Syracuse to coach at the University of Maryland, a move that paved the way for Hankinson, who was at Alabama A&M, to take the reins of a skilled squad with championship aspirations.
Coaching transitions are difficult for even the most talented teams and the veteran group of players found themselves trying to learn the new system that Hankinson implemented.
“We weren't used to him,” Sundsted said, “It was tough learning a new system. But we had the talent and we just pushed through and persevered and made it a good season.”
Captained by Jim Garrant, Syracuse started off the campaign strong, posting a 5-2-1 record in the first eight games, including wins over BIG EAST opponents Providence and Boston College. At the midpoint of the year they put together a four game unbeaten streak, going 3-0-1 in the stretch, with victories over Hobart, Army and St. Bonaventure. They closed out the regular season, and the last home game for the team's seniors, with a dramatic 3-2 overtime win over Fordham to clinch a 10-6-4 record heading into the BIG EAST Championship.
While this would be considered a successful season by most teams' standards, it didn't impress those in charge of handing out the conference's individual awards.
“They have a banquet every year, and [our team] went to banquet, where they always give out the season's awards, and we got no awards,” Sunsted said. “We all thought 'this is beautiful, we're the underdogs and no one's expecting us to win anything.'”
Fully aware of their own talent and potential, the Orange relished the role and used it to its collective advantage.
In the tournament semifinals against Pittsburgh, Syracuse benefitted from an own goal off of a corner kick in the fourth minute to take the lead. After peppering the Panthers with a school BIG EAST Tournament record 22 shots, Ken Vieira scored in the 82nd minute to put the game away. The 2-0 victory set up a chance for redemption in the championship game against Connecticut.
A crowd of 4,800 fans filled the stadium in Storrs, Conn. as Syracuse took the field against the Huskies, a team that had gotten the better of the Orange in the last two matchups. Boasting a 17-2-3 record coming into the game, the Orange knew the challenge it faced. Not only was it playing a dominant team, but the game was on Connecticut's home turf.
Goalie Rick Fatscher remembers the game well. He felt like the Orange was “hanging on” and vividly recalls the play that turned the tide of the game.
“There was one direct kick from the top of the box, [the save] was more of a reaction,” Fatscher said. “It was a knuckler. Just hit right on the screws and I recall a last-second deflection. I got my hand on it and it deflected right around the post. In years past that was a goal. It was still 0-0 at the time and I remember thinking that we could do it.”
The tournament's Most Outstanding Player couldn't have been more right. Greg Kolodziey broke the stalemate with a goal in the 56th minute. Fatscher described the play as a “tenacious effort” and the 1-0 lead proved to be all the Orange needed.
Fatscher finished with 11 saves in the contest, an SU BIG EAST Tournament record, and he and the rest of the Syracuse squad left Connecticut with what they came for - a BIG EAST Conference Championship.
The 1985 season saw Vieira tie the then single-season Orange record for goals with 14. He concluded the year with 31 points (14g, 3a) which still ranks eighth all-time in the SU annals. Sophomore Mark DiMonte finished second on the squad in scoring with 18 points (7g, 4a). Fatscher's 119 saves during 1985 made him the all-time saves leader for the Syracuse at the time. He is now second on that list having been supplanted by Chris Whitcomb. Fatscher's 8.5 save per game in 1985 still stands as an Orange record.
Now 25 years later the team will return to where that remarkable season began, to watch the Orange of today take on Pittsburgh and remember the season that Sunsted said “couldn't have ended any sweeter.”
