No. 9 UAlbany Men's Lacrosse Falls to no. 2 Syracuse

By Jessica Eley

©Mike Castellano

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Even with the No.9 UAlbany men's lacrosse team having arguably the best player in the nation, Lyle Thompson of the Onondaga Nation, the Great Danes couldn't muster enough to top No. 2 Syracuse (8-1, 2-1 ACC) Thursday evening at the Carrier Dome. The Great Danes (7-2, 3-0 American East)  fell to the Orange 17-12.

Thompson led his team with four goals and three assists. 

"We can take some from every game, especially this game," Thompson said. "In my eyes Syracuse is the best team in the country." 

Thompson Disappointed
 

Thompson said he always looks forward to coming to the Dome and playing in front of his family and friends. The crowd of mostly Syracuse fans went wild when Thompson scored his first goal in the first quarter with 5:11 left on the clock.

“You can’t stop Lyle, I’m sorry, he had seven points and we barely had the ball,” Albany head coach Scott Marr said. “He gets to where he wants to get to and he finds who he wants to find and he puts the ball in the back of the goal. He’s really the best player I’ve ever seen play lacrosse.”
 

Faceoffs

UAlbany fell short of its NCAA best 18.38 goals per game average against the Orange because the Great Danes had a hard time getting possession of the ball. The Great Danes went 5-33 in faceoffs against Syracuse. SU's Ben Williams leads the nation with a 71.4 percent faceoff success rate.

"They have the best faceoff man in the country and their offense is hard to stop," Thompson said.  

UAlbany suffered from losing its primary faceoff specialist, Conor Russell, when he tore his ACL in Saturday's game against UMass Lowell.

“When Connor went down on Saturday  it definitely was a blow to us,” Marr said. adding that Russell was between 55 and 60 percent  in winning faceoffs in the last four games.

 

“It was frustrating to not have the ball, and when you give the ball to a good offensive like theirs," Marr said. "It’s tough to watch.”

Defense

Thompson said he was happy with how his team played defense for the amount that it had to play.

"You're going to be fatigued playing defense the whole game," said goalie Blaze Riorden, who had had 15 saves. Riorden said they wanted to shut down SU's big name players.

"We wanted to make them make those plays and unfortunately tonight they did, they scored the goals."

The Great Danes held Dylan Donahue to one goal and Kevin Rice to three but he also had four assists.

"We did a pretty good job on their attack for such a high-powered offense," Riorden said.

Up Next

Albany has a conference matchup at Vermont this Saturday, April 4.