During last weekend’s Nike/ALLTEL Classic in Richmond, Va., Syracuse men’s soccer coach Dean Foti left a preseason All-Big East forward and last year’s National Freshman of the Year on his bench. He replaced them with a pair of freshmen.

The reason? Kirk Johnson, the All-Big East forward, and Jarett Park, the Freshman of the Year, showed up to the Orangemen’s preseason camp in lackluster shape, Foti said.

‘It’s tough when you have to depend on your freshmen to be an integral part of your team because your returning players don’t do what they’re supposed to,’ Foti said. ‘The (freshmen) up front wouldn’t be in the game if Jarett and Kirk were in shape and able to play.’

Foti switched Johnson and Park, who combined for 18 goals and 22 assists last season, for Jeff Evans and Robert Alexander, who went scoreless as the Orangemen dropped their first two games of the season.

Johnson and Park came in as substitutes during SU losses to Virginia Commonwealth — 1-0 on Friday — and Coastal Carolina — 3-1 on Sunday.

‘Our (summer) practices were intense,’ senior Eric Chapman said. ‘People were coming in fit. Well, the majority of the people were coming in fit.’

Neither Johnson nor Park adhered strictly to the team’s summer workout schedule. Foti said that Johnson was so out of shape that he could only play 35 to 40 minutes a game and that Park had barely touched a soccer ball during the summer.

Last week, Park admitted to arriving in subpar shape, blaming a heavy summer course load. Johnson offered fewer excuses.

‘I just kind of hung out, you know chilled,’ Johnson said of his summer activity.

Captain Chris Aloisi said the team was aware before the weekend meetings that Johnson and Park wouldn’t start.

‘Coach warned us beforehand about being in shape,’ he said.

Virginia Commonwealth and Coastal Carolina took advantage of Johnson and Park’s summer hibernations to stymie SU’s offense. Syracuse forced goaltenders Saul Montero of VCU and Aaron Sanders of Coastal Carolina to make only six combined saves.

Entering 2002, the Orangemen were ranked No. 23 in the NSCAA Top 25 and No. 2 in the New York region. Colgate soccer coach Mike Doherty and Cornell coach Bryan Scales, both voters in the New York regional poll, said much of the credit given to Syracuse was based on the return of Johnson and Park, one of the nation’s top forward tandems.

With the pair playing minor roles, Syracuse tumbled out of the Top 25 and plummeted to No. 10 in New York.

Last year, Syracuse scored the most goals in Big East conference play. The Orangemen, who last Tuesday gushed about accomplishing something special this season, huddled inside the team buses in a shocked state after Sunday’s loss.

After all, the Orangemen had already completed one of the best preseasons Aloisi can remember and appeared primed to take a pair of wins home from their trip to Virginia.

‘We’ve shown well all preseason,’ Aloisi said. ‘Most guys were in shape. We might have taken the weekend for granted. Instead of taking it game by game, we were looking at coming out of there 2-0.’

And instead of emerging undefeated, Chapman said the team ended the weekend in a worse position than he ever imagined.

‘We’re coming in to the flight on Thursday, and I thought worst case scenario we’d go 0-1-1,’ he said. ‘(I figured) we could somehow lose and tie. Likely we’ll win both games and be ranked Top 15. People were going to be scared to play us.’

But Virginia Commonwealth and Coastal Carolina were far from frightened of SU. Foti said the only Orangemen who played well were Chapman and senior Guido Cristofori, who scored SU’s lone goal. Five freshmen cracked Friday’s starting lineup, while six graced Sunday’s starting list.

‘It’s the first time I remember having more freshmen than upperclassmen,’ Chapman said. ‘It’s really an anomaly.’

Despite the dearth of freshmen among the starters, Foti blamed both the out-of-shape and the poorly-performing upperclassmen for the losses.

The uninspired play disturbed Aloisi so much he called for team meetings the past two days to sort out issues. After watching two-and-a-half hours of film on Monday afternoon, he called an unscheduled night practice as well.

‘(The loss) had nothing to do with the new guys,’ Foti said. ‘It’s the old guys, not the new guys. They have an excuse. We have sophomores, juniors and seniors who have been around the block.

“They know you have to show up every day and play. For some reason they didn’t.’

Published on September 3, 2002 at 12:00 pm