The ball spent the majority of the first overtime rocking back and forth, in and out of JoJo Marasco’s stick. It spent all but five seconds of the first sudden-death frame under Syracuse control.

After Albany dominated the majority of regulation, the Great Danes didn’t control the ball with any attacking intent until 3:24 in the second overtime.

Lyle Thompson cradled the ball in the corner after an Albany timeout and sprinted straight at David Hamlin. He dodged inside of his left shoulder and beelined for the crease. Bobby Wardwell and Brian Megill met him at the doorstep, leaving Miles Thompson to be covered by an SU midfielder that never arrived.

Lyle Thompson tossed the ball across the crease to Miles Thompson, who placed his shot right through the middle of Wardwell’s goal.

“These guys drew it up,” Albany head coach Scott Marr said after the game, pointing to brothers Miles and Lyle Thompson and their cousin Ty Thompson.

But for most of the No. 12 Orange’s (0-1) 16-15 double-overtime home loss, SU was the team scrambling. Seemingly caught off guard by a first quarter AU onslaught, SU never led, struggled to contain Albany inside and only stayed alive off a pair of second-half runs. When SU did control the game it didn’t finish, ensuring defeat before a crowd of 4,130 at the Carrier Dome.

The game plan was simple enough: force Albany to win with its midfield. The Great Danes couldn’t, but hardly needed to.

“At halftime we went in and talked about staying with our original game plan and knowing who their players are, especially those three guys,” said SU head coach John Desko, referring to the Thompsons.

SU trailed 8-5 at the break, at which point the Thompsons had scored or assisted on all but one of Albany’s goals. Though the Great Danes struck first, the Orange rattled off four unanswered to tie the game at 9-9.

Marasco keyed the run, dodging in from the X to bounce an equalizer past Albany’s Blaze Riorden just two minutes into the third quarter. His unassisted goal lit a fire under the Orange, spurring a four-goal, five-minute run SU spent darting around Riorden’s goal, pulling defenders in and out, firing at the openings it tore in Albany’s defense.

After Scott Loy knifed through the visitors’ defense with 7:55 remaining in the third, Marr called a timeout to stop the bleeding.

“It was 0-0, it was 9-9. We said there was 22 minutes left, we said we just had to win the next 22 minutes, keep playing our game,” Marr said he told his players. “It was a game of runs, we’re going to go on our run.”

The Thompsons’ show resumed within a minute.

Lyle Thompson beat Megill and finished to Wardwell’s right at 6:51. Miles Thompson escaped a Megill-Joe Fazio double team in the corner of the marching band end zone to get the Great Danes cycling into their offense. That possession ended with Lyle Thompson dishing right over Steve Ianzito to Ty Thompson to put Albany up 11-9.

The wheels were spinning off again for SU, and only more heroics from Marasco – he finished with three goals and five assists – quelled the Albany tide as the captain turned Doug Eich and scored from 15 yards out with 12 seconds left in the period.

“The coaches realized that they weren’t really sliding, and I’m pretty used to dodging against a pole,” Marasco said. “There was a couple of no-slides and I was able to take a couple good shots.”

The fourth quarter belonged to Syracuse and capped a 6-2 run that started with Marasco’s face-saver.

Freed up by Albany’s defensive attention to Derek Maltz, Dylan Donahue ran riot as SU looked to make the Great Danes’ early dominance a forgotten blip in an early-season scare. His three goals in six minutes hushed the purple half of the Carrier Dome crowd.

SU ran two plays in the final 40 seconds off timeouts. Marasco shot high with 14 seconds left, and a crease scramble ended with the ball stuck on the goal line as regulation expired.

By the end of the first overtime Marasco had run at defenders from every angle of the attack. Luke Cometti missed three times on the crease. Loy’s forced shot was saved. Desko’s proverbial chalkboard was emptied. Albany didn’t need one.

Miles Thompson pumped his legs on the sideline before the second overtime. He’d been stranded at the restraining line for the entire first, but found himself stranded by SU defenders less than two minutes into the second for the game-winner.

“I said to myself, ‘All I need is one chance,’” Thompson said. “They were taking like 10 shots, and I was like, ‘Just give me one chance, that’s all I need.’”

Published on February 17, 2013 at 10:06 pm

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