Syracuse defensive coach Lelan Rogers yelled at Brandon Mullins to just play Lyle Thompson topside and let the Albany attack roll underneath.

Having heard Rogers’ loud voice, Thompson rolled and it burned Syracuse in the first half.

When Mullins stopped Thompson, he dropped a pass to Connor Fields, who fired a low shot past SU goalie Bobby Wardwell to take a 2-0 lead.

In the second quarter, Thompson rolled, ran to the crease and bounced in a shot to close Albany’s gap against SU to 6-5.

“He’s gotta respect one side, either play me topside, you gotta pick one,” Thompson said. “I know that and I’m sure he knows that.”

Thompson handled No. 2 SU (8-1, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) Thursday night in the Carrier Dome, scoring four goals and assisting three more despite losing to Syracuse 17-12. No. 9 Albany (7-2, 3-0 America East) head coach Scott Marr called Thompson the best player he’s ever seen play. The Orange tried to defend Thompson with Ralph D’Agostino and Mullins.

“If you look at the time of possession that we had it, Lyle’s four (goals) and three (assists) in that short amount of time that we had the ball,” Marr said. “If go back and look at the actual time of possession, I want to say it’s two-thirds to a third, if not more.”

D’Agostino initially started in place of Sean Young to guard Thompson. When SU didn’t get the slides Orange head coach John Desko wanted, he put Young into the game.

At times, Thompson became Mullins’ responsibility. The Albany attack noticed SU had Mullins pressure out in an attempt to deny him the ball with a soft zone behind him. Thompson tried drawing a double team.

“Mullins did a really good job on me, pressuring out on me, staying out on my hands,” Thompson said. “Especially in the … first half, he was out on me pretty good and I adjusted the second half.”

But even in the second quarter, Thompson looked like he had adjusted just fine. He stood face-to-face with Mullins behind the net. He separated from Mullins by spinning as he moved toward the net and ran up the left side of the crease, finishing the play with a backhanded shot.

In his wake, Thompson left Mullins to gather himself up off the ground after the SU defender ran into midfielder Mike Messina on the crease. Mullins came off the field and Young came in the game. On the next possession D’Agostino guarded Thompson.

“Lelan did a good job of calming (Mullins) a little and saying, ‘Relax, let’s get back into it here, go back with the game plan,’” Desko said. “He had shut him a bunch in the first quarter, and then it looked like he was letting him have the ball again.”

SU held Thompson to two points in the second half until there were about five minutes left and the game pretty much over. The Albany attack picked up one more point to make the score 16-11 with 4:09 left and assisted on another to make the game 16-12 with 2:43 to play.

The Orange defense could do what it wanted to try and slow Thompson down, but ultimately, Ben Williams winning 24-of-27 faceoffs was the only thing that could permanently do that.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have the ball too much in the second half,” Thompson said.

Published on April 3, 2015 at 11:13 am

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