The No. 1 team in the country couldn’t get its hands on the ball. Two minutes had already gone by, and Syracuse had yet to gain possession against Hofstra.

From the opening faceoff, the Pride jumped on top of Syracuse. Two goals in under two minutes, and SU’s attack stood at midfield waiting for a chance.

‘We have to just learn from that,’ Syracuse senior attack Stephen Keogh said. ‘A lot of teams are going to play us that style.’

That style of long, drawn-out possessions prevented the SU offense from getting in rhythm. Sloppy play in the team’s opening scrimmage of the season led to a 6-5 loss to No. 10 Hofstra. But as the day wore on, that chemistry started to develop, and the Orange easily handled Le Moyne 10-5 in the final game of the afternoon.

Syracuse rotated five different players at the attack position throughout the day, and early on the lack of cohesion was evident.

On the team’s second possession, midfielder Jeff Gilbert juked left against a Hofstra defender to create space out in front of the goal. He tried to throw back to the right for a teammate, but his pass sailed out of bounds.

Later, midfielder Jovan Miller sprinted to chase down a ball deep in the right corner of SU’s attacking third and had to lob it back into play toward no one in particular.

‘Today, they just had a few mishaps,’ SU defender John Lade said of the offense. ‘It took them a while to get really comfortable, and that’s going to happen because you’re playing a different team for the first time.’

Syracuse got on the board 45 seconds into the second quarter. Miller’s shot beat Hofstra goalkeeper Andrew Gvozden in the bottom right corner, but it was an unassisted goal.

Midway through the second quarter was when Keogh felt the attack started to pull it together. Two minutes after Miller’s goal, senior midfielder Josh Amidon tied the score for Syracuse. He took a pass from attack Tim Desko – a pass that hit him in stride as he streaked down the middle of the field – and beat Gvozden.

A flash of a connected attack.

‘Me, Jeremy (Thompson) and Amidon, especially, we haven’t been on the same page,’ Miller said. ‘So it was a good time for us to start to gel a little better.’

After being held scoreless for the opening quarter, Syracuse put three on the board in the second to tie the game at halftime. At which point head coach John Desko put in some of the younger players for the final two quarters.

But the rationale against Le Moyne in the second scrimmage was a bit different. Having seen his offense struggle to do much of anything in a loss to Hofstra, Desko decided to give his starters extended minutes against the Dolphins.

The results were impressive. Three goals for Miller. Two goals for Desko. Ten goals in total.

And a win.

‘We wanted to get some things working,’ Desko said. ‘We wanted to get some movement, some flow. If you’re substituting too much, I think it’s hard for anybody to get in the flow.’

The flow was there but only at times. In the second quarter against Le Moyne, Jeremy Thompson caught the ball left of the goal. He spun back toward midfield and hit Keogh with a behind-the-head pass. Keogh held, looked and found a cutting Miller who whipped it home.

Desko said five players rotated in at the attack position during Saturday’s two scrimmages.

‘We had four or five guys running at attack, so I think we were just trying to get some chemistry going,’ Keogh said. ‘I think (Desko) wanted to make sure we knew the offenses and were running them right. We just wanted to get set up for the next couple weeks.’

Ultimately, though, the production was there by day’s end. Miller led the Orange with four total goals, while Desko and Keogh each finished with two. The team hopes it doesn’t take nearly 16 minutes of scoreless play to wake up the offense again.

‘We kind of started out slow, but we got it together a little bit,’ Miller said. ‘We got through it, but unfortunately it took us a little too long to get adjusted.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on February 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13