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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A second half penalty kick was the difference as the Cornell men's soccer team opened the 2009 season with a 2-1 loss at Syracuse on Saturday night. Syracuse evened its record at 1-1 on the year, while the Big Red fell to 0-1 with its season debut.

Junior Brett Sumpio scored his first goal of the season, finishing off a corner kick as the Big Red got on the scoreboard first, but Syracuse's Hansen Woodruff tallied a pair of goals, one in each half, to rally for the win. Cornell junior Scott Brody made three saves in the loss, while Syracuse's Ryan Jones got the win, making three saves in the second half.

Throughout the preseason, new head coach Jaro Zawislan preached about a new Big Red team, and that was evident even before the opening whistle as four new players found themselves in the starting lineup. Cornell took the game to the Orange early, pressuring the Orange relentlessly. That pressure paid off as the Big Red forced a corner kick at the 18th minute, its only corner of the first half. The Big Red made it count, though, as Scott Caldwell's ball to the back post found the head of Ben Kenyon, who nodded it toward the goal. The ball went to Sumpio, who got a touch on the ball to put it in the back of the net, putting the Big Red up with the 1-0 lead.

Syracuse responded in the 27th minute as the Orange's Geoff Lytle played a free kick across the Cornell penalty area that found the head of Woodruff. Brody was caught in no-man's land, as Woodruff's header looped over the head of the netminder who could only watch as the equalizer went in.

The two teams remained knotted at one at the half, though Syracuse got the go-ahead tally 16 minutes into the second half. Cornell's Matt Devitt was whistled for a foul in the penalty area, earning a booking on the play, and Woodruff slotted the penalty kick to the right of Brody, who guessed the wrong way.

Syracuse out-shot the Big Red on the match, 11-7, but all seven of Cornell's shots found the goal frame, compared to just five for the Orange. The Orange garnered seven corner kicks to Cornell's four, while being whistled for 15 fouls, compared to 10 for Syracuse.

Three freshmen - Will Zahn, Eric Brown and Kenyon - and a junior transfer, Dimitar Nentchev, made their first collegiate starts in the match, while freshmen Corey Marsh and Nico Nissl and sophomore Chase Aaronson made their collegiate debuts off the bench. The game also marked the first match in the head coaching tenure of Jaro Zawislan, who spent the last seven seasons on the sidelines as an assistant coach at Syracuse.

The Big Red has a day to recover from the hard-fought defeat as it returns to action on Monday, traveling to Hartwick for a 7 p.m. match against the Hawks.