No. 20 Syracuse and No. 15 Albany face off in the Carrier Dome at 4 p.m. Saturday. SU lost its first home-opener since 2013 Feb. 9 against Colgate and haven’t started its season 0-2 since 1974. But our beat writers all predicted an Albany win.

Here’s how the Orange and the Great Danes match up.

All-time series: Syracuse leads, 15-2

Last time they played: The Orange played the Great Danes in SU’s second game of the season Feb. 17 last year. Coming off of a dominant win in its season-opener, 21-4, over Binghamton, SU was crushed by Albany. Connor Fields had a quiet game by his standards with two goals and two assists, but the Great Danes received five goals from Tehoka Nanticoke, four more from Jakob Patterson and faceoff man TD Ierlan won 16-of-21 attempts at the X.

The Albany report: Albany lost a majority of its offense and perhaps the best faceoff specialist in the NCAA in Ierlan, but still maintains a large part of its core. Nanticoke is still on the team, the undisputed No. 1 recruit in the 2018 class, and is primed to take an even larger role in the Great Danes offense this year.

Albany had a historic year a season ago that ended in a loss to Yale in the National championship. The Great Danes easily won their first 10 games of the season (the closest game was a two-goal win over Cornell) and were ranked No. 1 in the nation by Inside Lacrosse from weeks three to 11 last season, before they were upset by UMBC. Although it lost two of its last four games, Albany finished No. 5 in Inside Lacrosse’s rankings and won the American East tournament by a combined 19 goals.

How Syracuse beats Colgate: The Orange need to get the ball and score. Though a good chunk of the Great Danes scoring is still present, the Orange need to capitalize on their depleted options and jump out to an early lead. Albany held the Orange to three goals last season. There’s no doubt that SU cannot repeat that this year if it wants a chance to win the game.

Last week against Colgate, Syracuse’s defense looked solid in front of Drake Porter, who played well in his first time as the starter in net for the Orange. SU head coach John Desko said after the game and Wednesday that the Raiders didn’t even score as many goals as they could have, a credit to the play of his defense. That, even in the beginning of the season, seemed to be the surest unit the Orange had. Now, it’s up to the offense to win this game for SU.

Stat to know: 46 percent — The percentage of points the Great Danes lost to either graduation or transfer. Albany also lost the best offensive player on its roster in Connor Fields, who had 86 of the 209 points Albany lost.

Player to watch: Tehoka Nanticoke, sophomore attack, No. 1

Nanticoke looks to take a majority of the offensive burden this year without Connor Fields at the helm. The now-sophomore took 172 shots in his first year and scored 50 goals. Though not much of a distributor, and not the most efficient shooter (his high volume of attempts led to just a .291 shooting percentage), Nanticoke will be worth watching to see how he adapts to the larger role.

Published on February 16, 2019 at 12:07 pm

Contact Michael: mmcclear@syr.edu | @MikeJMcCleary