As overtime loomed and Albany held on in the waning minutes of a tie game, the entire Great Danes’ bench stood. The entire Syracuse bench sat.

The Orange had held on in four straight 1-0 games, but after Albany’s Afonso Pinheiro beat SU goalkeeper Alex Bono at his near post 10 minutes into the second half to tie the game, a seemingly lifeless Orange would have to win in a different way.

It left head coach Ian McIntyre standing next to Alex Halis on the sideline, telling the sophomore to go score the game-winning goal.

Halis came on with 9:04 remaining, received the ensuing short corner kick on the ground from Julian Buescher and fired from 25 yards out. The ball was deflected, but into the top-left corner, putting the Orange ahead for good just 27 seconds after Halis stepped onto the field. It was his first goal of the year, and one that rescued a 2-1 win for No. 4 Syracuse (10-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast) over Albany (3-4-5, 1-0 America East) on Tuesday night in front of 877 at SU Soccer Stadium.

“He’s been having a bit of a tough go at it recently and him to get the game-winner tonight is very important — important for him and important for our team,” McIntyre said of Halis. “We need him to be a game-changer and he changed the game, didn’t he?”

As has become a standard first half for Syracuse, the Orange pestered the visitors’ goal often, but to no avail. After threats from Emil Ekblom, Chris Nanco and Buescher went unanswered, Jordan Murrell finally broke through for SU.

The left center back stood behind a corner kick at the right corner flag and whipped a ball toward the far post. It beat the outstretched right hand of Albany goalkeeper Tim Allen into the top-right corner off the inside of the left post for a goal directly off a corner kick.

The lead only lasted 23 minutes, though, as a breakdown in the defense allowed the Great Danes to tie the game. Murrell won a header at midfield but it was deflected to the feet of midfielder Leo Melgar. Melgar slotted a through ball to a wide-open Pinheiro, who placed the ball between Bono and the right post to tie the game.

“In no way, shape or form was our idea to sit back and take on any kind of pressure,” Bono said. “It was disappointing for us to come out like that in the second half.”

Syracuse was on the back foot. The crowd was silenced after witnessing only the second goal Syracuse has surrendered in 11 games. Then Halis responded.

After scoring on his second touch of the game, he turned to the crowd, threw both hands up in the air and smiled from ear to ear.

“It got the monkey off my back,” Halis said. “I still have adrenaline. I still feel it.

“(Albany) dropped back pretty far so it’s kind of tough to break through, but at the end of the day we found a way and won the game.”

The win gives Syracuse its best start in program history eight hours after receiving the highest ranking in program history. The 1984 Orangemen were ranked No. 6 when they started 9-1, but were unable to win the 10th.

It wasn’t the 1-0 shutout that has become commonplace as of late, but rebounding after surrendering a goal spoke more.

“When you’ve gone through a scoreless period like that, you worry that when that goal goes in, there will be such a deflation and almost like a shock,” McIntyre said. “Some of you guys have been saying we’ve only scored one goal. Well tonight we double that and scored two.”

Published on October 7, 2014 at 10:40 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman