Faceoffs and Possession Key in Syracuse's Win Over Albany

By Kerry Bretti 

SYRACUSE, N.Y.- It was packed for lacrosse at the Carrier Dome Sunday evening as No. 6 Syracuse hosted No. 12 Albany for the Great Danes’ first game of the season. The crowd of 4,388 saw Syracuse rout Albany 16-7.

“It’s hard to win when you don’t have the ball,” Albany coach Scott Marr said. “It’s hard to play defense that much and continue to get stop after stop. Give them credit for facing off well and taking advantage of having the ball so much.”

X Factor

Ben Williams takes the faceoff against Zach Ornstein

Faceoffs have been a big factor in both of Syracuse’s wins this season. Ben Williams started at the X for the Orange, winning the first 11 faceoffs of the day.  Williams wound up taking 17 of 24 against Albany’s Zach Ornstein. 

Cal Paduda won three of three when he took over for Williams in the fourth quarter. 

Syracuse's dominating at the faceoff left little opportunity for Albany to gain possession. Still, Syracuse led just 7-4 at the half.

“It was great that Ben was in good form and gave us a lot of possessions, putting a lot of pressure on their defense throughout the game,” Syracuse coach John Desko said. “As coaches we went into halftime disappointed that there wasn’t a bigger margin with the amount of time we had the ball on offense.”

Sharing the wealth

Nick Mariano Celebrates an Orange Goal

Syracuse’s offense took 59 shots throughout the game with goals from nine different players. Nick Mariano led the team with three goals and one assist. Derek DeJoe also added three goals of his own and Matt Lane tallied two goals and two assists. Dylan Donohue assisted on four goals while scoring one for himself. Syracuse only scored on one of four man-up opportunities.

“That’s what we’d like to be standard, that’s how we like to play,” Desko said of the multiple players scoring. “We don’t want to give the ball to one person all the time and if they get stopped and our team stops, our offense stops. We want to share the ball like we did.”

“When you have a team with that many threats it becomes difficult to play against,” Marr said.

It's tough without Thompson

Albany graduated last year’s leading scorer and two-time Tewaaraton winner, Lyle Thompson. Albany’s scoring was led by Bennett Drake and Justin Reh who each scored two goals. Seth Oakes added one goal and one assist . Syracuse held the Great Danes’ top returning scorer, Connor Fields, to two assists. Albany capitalized on two of three man-up opportunities.

“We felt that they were going to share the ball this year instead of giving it to one player, [Lyle Thompson], 80 percent of the time,” Desko said. “The defense got comfortable fast and were pretty stingy.”

Albany cleared 20 of 25 times and added 18 turnovers. Syracuse was nearly perfect, clearing 18 of 19 times and turning the ball over 13 times. The Orange dominated the Great Danes in ground ball pickups, 45-26.

Goalies

“We’re a blue collar team we’re a hard nosed team and we like to get majority of the ground balls and they out ground-balled us today and I think that was another big factor in today’s loss,” Albany goalkeeper Blaze Riorden said.

Riorden played the full 60 minutes, saving 17 of 33 shots on goal. Warren Hill also played the full 60 minutes for the Orange, saving five shots of 12.

“They started off firing and I didn’t do a good job coming out to a great start,” Riorden said. “A lot of the guys were looking to me to spark and set the mentality for how the game was gonna go and I didn’t do a good job of that.”

Next

With Tim Barber and Nick Mariano injured, Desko said we can plan to see more of Devin Shewell, Nate Solomon, and Gale Thorpe. Desko is hopeful that Barber will return for next weekend’s matchup against Army.

With the win, the Orange improves to 2-0 while the Great Danes fall to 0-1.