When Randy Staats jumped in the air to celebrate a fourth-quarter goal against Johns Hopkins last week, John Desko didn’t know his starting attack had sustained an injury three quarters earlier that will likely keep him out for more than a week.

“He was about a foot and a half off the ground, so maybe he could’ve played today,” Desko joked.

Staats missed Sunday’s game against Duke with a lower-body injury and in his place, second-line midfielder Tim Barber, making his first start of the year, logged a goal and an assist in No. 1 Syracuse’s (7-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) 19-7 win over No. 4 Duke (7-2, 0-1) in the Carrier Dome on Sunday afternoon.

“I can’t tell you how long he’s going to be out. I’m hoping just a week or two but we’ll see,” Desko, the SU head coach, said of Staats. “I doubt it, I doubt it next week. It’s just an injury that takes time and everybody responds to it differently.”

In the third quarter, Barber — the reigning Junior College Offensive Player of the Year at Onondaga Community College — spun off Duke defender Greg Pelton on the right side of the goal, fired a shot off his left foot and did a windmill motion with his right fist after the ball found the back of the net.

“You’re playing without a guy like Randy, everyone else has to step up and elevate their game,” attack Kevin Rice said. “Timmy Barber did a really good job stepping up.”

Desko used Jordan Evans sparingly on attack as well — not as much as the head coach would’ve liked — but Barber was the main replacement for SU’s second-leading goal-scorer.

And as was shown by the Orange’s 19 goals, there was by no means a drop-off in production with the insertion of the OCC transfer.

“He was even unselfish, I wish he would’ve taken it a couple more times,” Desko said of Barber. “But I think getting out there for the first time with Dylan (Donahue) and Kevin and they were getting the job done.

“Very happy with his performance.”

Published on March 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman