John Desko experienced dj vu as he roamed the sidelines Friday night.

The Syracuse head coach saw the Orange establish a comfortable five-goal lead in the first quarter. He saw SU play effective defense, limiting Albany attackman Merrick Thomson to zero goals – far from his five-goal performance last year.

Despite the early play that could have easily sealed the win, the Great Danes crept back, including six straight fourth-quarter goals to force the game into overtime.

Desko noticed these same strengths and weaknesses as he witnessed in last week’s game against Rutgers. Against the Scarlet Knights, SU didn’t build a comfortable first-quarter lead, but rebounded in the third quarter before allowing Rutgers to dominate the fourth period to force overtime.

But in both games, No. 9 Syracuse found a way to prevail by depending on its attack to finish the job. SU snuck out of the Carrier Dome with a 14-13 overtime victory against Albany on Friday night in front of 3,798, improving to a 6-4 record and guaranteeing a .500 finish.

Credit Syracuse for surviving yet another close game in overtime. Criticize Syracuse for allowing such a scenario to occur. When judging SU after its win Friday, it’s similar to when a teenager crashes his car. You’re glad and show compassion for the kid, but you chastise him later for not being careful.

‘That’s something we got to work on,’ senior attackman Joe Yevoli said. ‘It’s been two games in a row that we allowed a team to come back. It made it a little too exciting, which I guess is fun for everybody else. But it stinks for us. I know a lot of people on the sideline were biting their fingernails a little bit.’

But the Orange made sure the game would end on a high note. After Albany called timeout with 3 minutes, 40 seconds remaining in overtime, Danny Flores attempted a quick shot, which SU goalie Pete Coluccini admits wasn’t expected. But the goaltender made the stop.

After Syracuse slowed the tempo down, Yevoli received the ball, dodged left and found Brett Bucktooth slide past his defender close to the goal. Yevoli dished the ball to Bucktooth, who quickly fired in the game-winning shot. It was the senior’s game-high fifth goal of the game.

‘This time they came very early, a little earlier than we thought,’ Desko said. ‘Brett read the situation, Joe got (the ball) to Brett. Good things happen. We had it in the two better hands at the end of the game.’

Desko originally imagined Yevoli taking matters into his own hands. The graduate student already recorded four goals, all part of SU’s early offensive effort. With how similar Desko saw Friday’s game to its matchup with Rutgers, he thought the final play should be similar.

Last week left-hander Mike Leveille scored against Greg Havalchak, a right-handed goalie. On Friday, Desko thought it would be useful for left-handed Yevoli to go against Brett Queener, a right-handed goalie.

It didn’t exactly end the way Desko imagined. But then again, neither did the rest of the game.

Syracuse stormed ahead with its run-and-gun offense to dominate the first quarter, leading 5-0. With Yevoli’s behind-the-back score early in the second, Syracuse was on the cusp of breaking away, but Albany kept within reach by reducing the lead, 8-5, at halftime.

Then when Syracuse looked to break away with a 13-7 lead in the fourth quarter, Albany wouldn’t give up. Heading into the game, Desko expressed concern regarding Albany’s ability to create goals off transition. Albany normally plays a slow tempo, but anytime the Great Danes make a clear or scoop up a ground ball, it specializes on earning goals in transition.

Late in the fourth quarter, that’s exactly what happened. Albany reeled off six goals in six minutes, many off transition and three from attackman Corey Small.

‘Lacrosse is a game of runs. You can be up six goals and be down in a goal in a matter of 12 minutes,’ Coluccini said. ‘When it happens, you can’t really do anything on defense but try to get a stop and get the ball to the offense. Then let them give a chance to score a goal, and hopefully it stops the bleeding.’

Published on April 22, 2006 at 12:00 pm