As Tommy Palasek entered the postgame press conference room, he hesitated.

Palasek stopped next to the table. It was the first time Palasek, the transfer from Johns Hopkins, had talked to the media postgame in his stint with Syracuse. And even though four microphones were set up alongside Orange head coach John Desko, the SU attack wasn’t sure what to do.

Palasek’s trip to the postgame press conference wasn’t the only first for No. 1 Syracuse on Tuesday. The Orange (5-0) dominated a depleted Albany (3-2) squad 18-13 in the Carrier Dome. The No. 14 Great Danes played without their entire first midfield line due to injuries and were overmatched from the start. Eleven different players scored for SU, including six that tallied their first goals of the season.

And for Desko, that scoring diversity is a good sign.

‘I’m always happy to see that,’ Desko said. ‘… It makes it more difficult to scout and means everybody’s learning the offense. I was happy with that part of it.’

SU started the day with a goal from one of its more typical scorers. Senior midfielder Jeremy Thompson won the opening faceoff and darted into the offensive zone. He passed the ball off but quickly got it back in the middle of the defense on a feed from Josh Amidon. Thompson quickly fired the shot into the back of the net to put SU up 1-0 just 16 seconds into the game.

It took more than 10 minutes for SU to score its next goal, but Albany couldn’t do anything against SU’s defense in that time. The Great Danes fired just three shots on goal in the first quarter.

Then came the string of goals from unexpected sources.

Joel White started it off with four seconds left in the first period. He got an open look in transition and buried a shot for his first goal of the season to put SU up 4-1 after 15 minutes. Albany would close within 4-2 early in the second, but senior Jeff Gilbert tallied his first goal of the year three minutes later. Palasek then tallied his first of four goals on the night three minutes after that to put SU up 6-2.

‘It feels great, obviously, to get that first one,’ Palasek said. ‘As an attack, my job is to go out there and produce some sort of points, and obviously, I haven’t been doing that in the first couple games. But it feels good to finally get that one off my chest.’

But Palasek, White and Gilbert had all scored multiple times throughout their careers. The next two SU goals may have been the most surprising.

After an Albany shot was knocked down in front, Orange defender Tom Guadagnolo led the Syracuse break. He flipped the ball to Thompson on the left side. Thompson then passed to junior Colin Donahue. Donahue looked back to the middle and found Guadagnolo standing alone in the middle of the zone.

Guadagnolo wound up and ripped in the first goal of his career to put SU up 7-3.

‘I think that’s not as important to get it on the scoreboard,’ Guadagnolo said, ‘but more of like a boost or a morale thing to get the team hyped up.’

And then Tim Harder’s gave the Orange a boost.

John Lade knocked down an Albany pass in the defensive zone, and White led the Syracuse break. Two defenders closed on him as he charged downfield, so he dumped off to the senior Harder on his right. The defensive midfielder also sent in the first goal of his career. SU was up 8-3.

‘It’s certainly a goal when you come in, you don’t want the extra guys (to score) in a sense,’ Albany head coach Scott Marr said. ‘Unfortunately, those are kind of like backbreakers when their guys who aren’t supposed to score in a sense do score.’

The more typical scorers for SU with the addition of Palasek took over in the second half to build upon Syracuse’s 9-3 halftime lead. Orange leading scorer Tim Desko tied Palasek for the game-high with four goals.

The score ballooned to 15-7 by the end of the third and SU’s backups saw action for most of the fourth quarter.

‘We’ve been in so many tight games this year, overtime last week, a couple goals the week before,’ John Desko said. ‘… And we got a lot of guys that we want to get some game experience and they did today.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on March 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm