Matt Lane drove toward the goal from the left wing. It was the same move he had used two previous times this season. As he stumbled to the ground, the ball flew out of his stick, across the face of the goal and over the sideline.

The first shot in his first career start wasn’t even close. But 10 minutes later, Lane caught a pass from Dylan Donahue, crow-hopped and unleashed a bullet 15 yards from the goal. It pushed Syracuse’s lead to 7-4 and came in the middle of an eight-goal stretch in which all of its goals came outside its starting attack.

A year removed from SU’s first-line attack accounting for 55 percent of Syracuse’s points, it was diverse scoring from the midfield that separated the Orange in a 16-7 win over Albany.

“That’s what we’d like to be standard,” SU head coach John Desko said. “That’s how we like to play. We don’t want to give the ball to one person all the time. If they get stopped, then our team stops and our offense stops. We want to share the ball like we did today.”

With starting attack Nick Piroli out with a lower-body injury and midfielder Tim Barber, who moved up to attack in his absence, out for the second half, No. 5 Syracuse (2-0) relied on its depth to surge past No. 12 Albany (0-1) on Sunday in the Carrier Dome. Lane, typically on the second line, had two goals and two assists while fellow midfielders Derek DeJoe and Nick Mariano each had three goals.

 

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After losing five of its top six scorers and its entire starting midfield to graduation, Desko said Syracuse would spend the early portion of the season sorting out who will replace them. On Sunday, the Orange proved it won’t fall on a single person.

“After (last season), it was kind of on our shoulders, especially just middies in general,” DeJoe said. “People had to step up and take on that role.”

With the game still up for grabs midway through the third quarter, the 6-foot-7 Lane lured in the defense and passed to an open Devin Shewell in the teeth of Albany’s defense. From 5 yards out, the freshman coolly scored to give Syracuse a five-goal lead.

Even as Donahue, who had four goals and five assists last week against Siena, was limited to a relatively quiet one goal and four assists, Syracuse’s role players picked up the slack. Albany goalie Blaze Riorden said Donahue fell under the “known” category in the game plan, but players like DeJoe and Lane weren’t given as much recognition.

“Every game you see guys like Dylan Donahue putting up six-, seven-point games,” Riorden said. “To limit guys like that, we got to limit the rest of them.”

SU led 12-6 after three quarters and Mariano, Lane, DeJoe and Shewell each had two goals. No one else on the Orange had more than one.

 

Liam Sheehan | Asst. Photo Editor

 

As Albany’s defense slid from the bottom of the field, Syracuse’s shooters could capitalize on the Great Danes’ hesitation at the top. And Mariano, Lane and DeJoe’s best skill is their shooting ability.

“If you look at the guys that put up points today, they were shooters,” Desko said. “… Our shooters made good today on the opportunities they had.”

Desko has previously likened DeJoe to a 3-point shooter in basketball and Albany head coach Scott Marr said the Orange excelled at spreading out his defense with its variety of scoring threats.

With the game already out of reach in the fourth quarter, Syracuse kept piling on. It finally ended when Lane stood near the top of the restraining box and instead of dodging to the goal, he passed it off to Mariano who put the final nail in the Great Danes’ coffin.

“When you play a team with that many threats,” Marr said, “yeah it is difficult to play defense against.”

Published on February 21, 2016 at 8:51 pm

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