Played podcasts continue to sync

Hi all, I have a podcast subscription that I've had for years. Once the episode is played, the podcast episode is deleted as indicated in settings.

In the past, when I sync my phone with iTunes, played episodes would be downloaded to my phone, but I could easily either select them in iTunes as "played," or I could select "edit" in Podcasts and select "mark as played" to the multiple episodes that I already listened to.

With the last update, I had to manually delete every episode that I listened to twice. I delete it, and then I have to delete the download again. If I select to NOT sync the podcast, iTunes says it will remove the podcast from my phone, and I don't want that. I don't have the option to select the episodes I don't want to download through iTunes.

Am I missing something?? How do I keep these episodes from downloading to my phone after I've listened to them? Please help! Thank you in advance!