On Oct. 20, 2012, Tyler Hilliard scored his first career goal for Syracuse 15 minutes into a home match against DePaul — heading in a Jordan Murrell free kick to give the Orange an early lead.

On Friday night at SU Soccer Stadium, 10 days short of the two-year anniversary of that, Hilliard scored his second and third. Both came on headers. And both came on free-kick assists from Murrell.

Hilliard and Murrell — two pawns of SU’s three-man defense — led No. 4 Syracuse (11-1, 4-1 Atlantic Coast) to a 3-1 victory over Wake Forest (6-6, 2-3). With two goals against the Demon Deacons, SU’s defensive corps now has four of the team’s last seven goals and continues to hold opposing offenses in check during the Orange’s historic start.

The SU victory avenged last year’s season-ending loss to the Demon Deacons, and set a program record with 11 wins in the first 12 games.

“If I can get one goal in a season, I’m happy,” Hilliard said. “Two in one night, that’s really beyond my wildest dreams.”

With six 1-0 victories this season, Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre has pushed his defense to not just prevent goals, but also score them.

“We’ve been giving our defenders a little bit of a stick,” McIntyre said. “ … It was great for those guys to get on the end of things tonight.”

Hilliard’s heroics may have stemmed from a conversation he had earlier in the day with Murrell, who scored on Tuesday against Albany, and fellow defender Skylar Thomas, who scored the only goal in SU’s victory over then-No. 2 Virginia on Sept. 27. 

The defensive trio talked about who has the best header among the three. Jokingly, Hilliard predicted he would score against the Demon Deacons. Murrell and Thomas both disagreed, saying they’d score instead. 

“Apparently ‘T’ is the best right now,” Murrell said after the match, adding that he and Thomas now owe Hilliard an “undisclosed” amount of cookies.

In the 8th minute, Wake Forest committed a foul just inside the midfield line and Murrell was awarded a free kick from about 35 yards out.

The defender placed a perfect free kick into the box where it found Hilliard, who was facing away from the ball. Hilliard raised above the Demon Deacons’ defense and flicked a shot off the top of his head by goalkeeper Alec Ferrell.

“A very important goal to put us on the front foot against an outstanding Wake Forest team,” McIntyre said.

Aside from the goals, Hilliard and Murrell were omnipresent on both sides of the field throughout the night. And with SU holding on to a 1-0 lead early in the second half, Murrell took another free kick. Once again, it found Hilliard, who this time placed his forehead on the ball to direct it into the net.

“(Tyler) should probably give us some more then, right?” McIntyre said, jokingly. “ … He’s a very athletic player. I think he’s having an outstanding year. We defenders, it’s nice to score goals every now and then.”

With his second assist of the match, Murrell moved into a tie for fifth place on the all-time SU assists list with 19.

In the 69th minute, Syracuse forward Chris Nanco extended SU’s lead to 3-0, and although Wake Forest’s Hank Gauger scored with four minutes left in regulation, Syracuse cruised to victory.

After the match, Murrell found Hilliard on the sideline and gave him a giant bear hug. When Hilliard spoke to a group of reporters, Murrell snuck up and pulled at Hilliard’s shorts.

And Hilliard stood gleaming with a smile stretching ear to ear.

“I’m sure I’ll be on the next scouting report,” he said.

Published on October 10, 2014 at 11:44 pm

Contact Josh: jmhyber@syr.edu