Photo courtesy cuse.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- With the amount of purple in the stands and cheers for the Great Danes, many would believe this game was played at the University of Albany. That wasn't the case as the #6 Syracuse Orange (2-0) hosted the #12 Albany Great Danes (0-1)in men's lacrosse on Saturday afternoon.
A game that started out with Great Dane domination, ended up being a thriller as the Orange took down the Great Danes 10-9 with a goal from senior midfielder Nick Mariano with two seconds left in the game to give Syracuse the win.
"I mean honestly I wasn't listening in the huddle," Mariano admitted with a laugh, "until the last five seconds coach said I was gonna come off a pick, I knew what we were doing."
All Albany
The Great Danes took the early lead and continued to score, leading the Orange 6-1 in the second period.
The Great Danes were also dominant on defense in the first half, causing five turnovers and capitalizing on ground balls.
The Albany domination slowed down in the third period, giving the Orange an opportunity to score four goals to take its first lead of the game.
"I'll be honest, I don't think it was much of what they were doing, they didn't really change much of their defense," Albany head coach Scott Marr said of being shut out in the third period.
"Maybe a little bit of our youth came out, maybe inexperience, you could look at it a bunch of different ways but we just didn't execute what had worked in the first two quarters," senior attack Bennett Drake said.
Albany got the momentum back after that and tied the game up at 7. This was the beginning of the back-and-forth battle between the two teams.
Looking for a comeback
The Orange went into halftime trailing by three and head coach John Desko told his team, "we got 30 minutes to go," he said. "Didn't need it to happen all at once we just had to go out, roll up our sleeves and get back to work."
The first half may have been all Albany but in the third period it was Syracuse's game. The Orange won five of six face-offs and redshirt senior goalkeeper, Evan Molloy, had three saves.
"To come out on top against a good lacrosse team like this, in such a close game is going to be a good learning experience for our group," Desko said. "To have to fight and come back against a hot goaltender was a good exercise for us."
Up next
After a tough loss, Marr said the Great Danes are looking ahead.
"We don't dwell on losses or wins, the games over, we accept the outcome and now we're focused on Drexel," he said.
The Great Danes will look to get their first win of the season when they visit Drexel on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The Orange will host Army West Point on Saturday at noon in the Carrier Dome.
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