Men's Soccer

Julian Buescher carries 8-game point streak into Albany game

Logan Reidsma | Photo Editor

Julian Buescher is capitalizing on his refined role this season in Syracuse's offense. He leads the team with 33 shots, five assists and four goals.

Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre is reluctant to call Julian Buescher the most consistent player on the team.

“Julian has been very, very good,” McIntyre said. “Most consistent? We’re looking for goals and assists from him and I think he’s scored in a couple of big games for us.”

But Buescher has personified the word as well as anyone for SU — he’s scored or assisted in each of the last eight games.

After not scoring his freshman year, the midfielder has taken on a larger role in the offense for his sophomore season. He leads the team with 33 shots, 13 points, five assists and four goals.  He’ll try to keep his point streak alive when the Orange (7-2-1, 2-1-1 Atlantic Coast) faces Albany (5-4-1, 0-1 America East) at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at SU Soccer Stadium.

Buescher played for 1,563 minutes in 20 starts last year and tallied just five assists while not converting on a single scoring chance. It wasn’t for a lack of aggressiveness, as he shot just one and two fewer times than midfielder Nick Perea and forward Chris Nanco, respectively, both who scored five goals.



“The fact that he didn’t score at all last year was a shock to everyone, pretty much,” midfielder Oyvind Alseth said. “… He didn’t hear the end of it.”

The first two games of this season looked like more of the same from last. Buescher had seven shots — fewer than only Nanco — and nothing to show for it on the score sheet.

But with almost 70 percent of the team’s scoring gone from last year, SU needed players to step up. The team talked about how, with Perea gone, it needed points from the midfield, Juuso Pasanen said.

And Buescher finally emerged, beginning his point streak which most recently included a two-goal performance in a win over Duke on Friday.

In 10 games, he already has nearly triple the amount of points, the same amount of assists and almost the same number of shots that he had during his freshman campaign.

“His responsibility now is to also be a little bit more of a game-changer for us,” McIntyre said. “He’s risen to that challenge and he’s embraced that.”

At times this season, Buescher has moved from his attacking midfield position into more of a forward role next to Ben Polk.

He doesn’t have the speed that the team’s other forwards have, Alseth said, but Buescher excels “checking in, receiving the ball (and) facing the wrong way.” He allows the Orange offense to be more creative with Nanco making runs from the midfield.

“It just makes us more unpredictable because we have more opportunities up front,” Alseth said.

Against then-No. 23 Louisville on Sept. 11, Buescher positioned his back to the net at the top of the penalty area. He boxed out his defender and angled a pass from Alseth neatly into the box for Alseth to score on.

In his goal against Pittsburgh on Sept. 25, Buescher was the farthest man down field and buried a right-footed shot from about 18 yards away with defenders in front of him.

“I can go a little bit more forward so I get more opportunities to be closer to the goal and actually get chances to score,” Buescher said.

When Buescher plays forward, it helps SU defensively because he naturally drops back, he said, so the Orange gets an added midfielder.

Buescher has shed the inability to score that plagued him freshman year and is flourishing at a time when Syracuse needs him offensively. McIntyre helped Buescher increase his production by pushing him into a more attacking role.

The success of the Orange going forward will rely, at least in part, on whether or not Buescher can keep up the consistency that he has shown, McIntyre said.

“In order for us to fulfill our potential, we need goals and assists from him,” McIntyre said. “He welcomes that and he’s been very good.”





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