Tom Perevegyencev knew his legs were going to give out any minute.

Eighty-eight minutes into a 0-0 tie with Cincinnati, the Syracuse forward could feel the cramps setting in all through his legs. Minutes earlier, he had watched Hansen Woodruff, his team’s leading scorer, leave the game clutching his left hamstring. Forward Spencer Schomaker had left after bumping heads earlier in the game.

As the temperatures dropped and the rain began to fall, Perevegyencev tried his best to put the pain out of mind, knowing his team, in the middle of a four-game losing streak and struggling to stay alive in the Big East, needed a goal.

As he took a pass deep in Bearcats territory, Perevegyencev knew the defenders would be as tired as he was, and mustered the last of his strength to dribble past two of them along the goal line and bury a shot into the left side of the net.

‘I saw Kyle (Hall) in there, but I thought, ‘The defense is tired, I’m tired, I’m going to give it a last shot.’ And it worked out,’ Perevegyencev said.

Syracuse (5-4-3, 2-4) clung to the 1-0 lead and snapped its four-game losing streak at the expense of Cincinnati (5-6-1, 3-2-1) in front of 776 fans Saturday night at the Syracuse Soccer Stadium. After the game, no one could deny the importance of the goal or of the win. Syracuse head coach Dean Foti called the game a must-win for his team to stay alive in the Big East hunt.

‘We had lost four games,’ Foti said. ‘We needed to get back to doing the things that we were doing early on in the season. And I thought some of those things showed up tonight, and when we do those things, we put ourselves in a position to win games.’

The Orange had battled the Bearcats evenly throughout, recording 12 shots to UC’s 13. Both goalies saw five shots come their way – SU goalie Rob Cavicchia stopped all five of his shots to bring his season total to 203. He is the sixth goalie in SU history to record 200 saves.

But most of the game was played in the middle of the field, as both teams had trouble advancing the ball close to the opposing team’s net. Foti said that the strength of the Big East has made this common throughout the team’s conference schedule.

‘Sometimes you get games like that. A lot of times in the Big East, that’s what happens,’ defender Brad Peetoom said. ‘They’re scrappy games. A lot of the game is played in the midfield, back and forth. There was good defense on both ends, and luckily, Tom made a couple nice moves and slaughtered a goal, and that was beautiful.’

That type of game led to few scoring opportunities for both teams. Early in the second half, Woodruff shot a ball off of the crossbar, landing a few feet from the goal line. Cincinnati forward Kenny Anaba, tied for second in the Big East in scoring, had UC’s best scoring opportunity – a breakaway 10 minutes into the second half which was foiled by Cavicchia.

Syracuse is no stranger to closely fought games with one play making the difference. Four of its six Big East games thus far have been decided by a single goal. Foti said in games when the time begins to run out, he only needs one player to make one play, and Saturday, it was Perevegyencev.

‘Tom’s a very dangerous player,’ Foti said. ‘If he’s facing a defender, he can run at them and be really dangerous, and we felt like if we can get him the ball in those kind of spots, he can be really difficult to defend, and sure enough he snapped one off.’

The Orange still sits in last place in the Big East’s eight-team red division. Six of those teams will be eligible for the conference tournament in early November. The win against Cincinnati earned the Orange three more points and moved it one win away from sixth place, with five Big East games remaining on the schedule.

‘That’s really big because if we would have lost this game or tied this game, I think our Big East hopes would have been out,’ Perevegyencev said. ‘So I think this win picks our team up again, and I think we’re going to be really strong in the Big East again.’

Published on October 14, 2007 at 12:00 pm