Alex Drexler lay on the 38-yard line in a heap. He was motionless.

As three Denver staff members tended to the injured midfielder, the referees sent Syracuse freshman Brian Megill to the sideline with an illegal body check penalty. Seven minutes into the game, and with the Orange up 4-2, Denver was about to be in a man-up situation. The Pioneers had a chance to cut the lead to one and thwart the early Orange momentum.

But potential for Denver quickly turned into missed opportunity. Just four minutes later the Pioneers found themselves down 8-2.

‘I thought we kind of settled down and then we were man-up,’ Denver head coach Bill Tierney said. ‘But we threw the ball into their stick and they go down and score, and all of a sudden it seemed like it went from 4-2 to 8-2 and that rattled us.’

After junior midfielder Jovan Miller scored 41 seconds into the season-opener, the No. 1 Orange never let up, defeating No. 19 Denver 15-9 in front of a crowd of 4,938 at the Carrier Dome Friday.

Syracuse (1-0) dominated in almost every statistical category. The Orange outshot Denver 41-31 for the game. SU also collected 40 ground balls, compared with just 26 for the Pioneers (0-2). Both veterans and newcomers contributed to a convincing season-opening victory. By the time the game was over, SU had 12 different players register at least one point.

It was an all-around team effort in every sense of the word.

‘I’d much rather have a team that has a number of people scoring on it than one or two players getting all the points,’ SU head coach John Desko said. ‘We become that much harder to cover, and to have young guys contribute is encouraging.’

Of those newcomers, JoJo Marasco, Pete Coleman, Jeremy Thompson, Spenser Parnell and Joe Moore all registered their first career points for the Orange.

But it was senior Cody Jamieson who led the Orange with four goals.

With eight minutes remaining in the third quarter, Syracuse had a man advantage and was looking to add on to its 12-4 lead. Denver goaltender Zander Buteux tried to clear the ball but hesitated, and the ball fell out of his stick. Joel White scooped it up and raced to the open net. A Denver defender stood helpless in the net but blocked a point-blank shot from White. Jamieson happened to be in the right place at the right time and fired in another goal off the rebound.

It was that kind of a day for the Pioneers. Even a potential highlight for Denver turned into another Syracuse goal.

‘I thought Joel was going to score, so I was running in there to congratulate him,’ Jamieson said. ‘There was that little scrum in front of the net and the ball happened to fall into my stick.’

The Orange was able to manufacture goal after goal, even when it was not whipping the ball around in the set offense. The two-headed monster of Gavin Jenkinson and Jeremy Thompson dominated the faceoff ‘X.’ The duo went 19-of-27 on the day, turning many of those faceoff wins into scoring opportunities.

And sometimes, Thompson didn’t even need anyone to get the ball to.

With three minutes left in the first quarter and Syracuse holding a 7-2 lead, the speedy Thompson won the faceoff and took the ball right up the middle by himself. Thompson fired it past Denver goaltender Pete Lowell for the first goal of his Syracuse career.

Tierney was forced to pull his senior goalie and insert the sophomore Buteux.

‘It was absolutely terrifying,’ Buteux said. ‘All of a sudden I am going against a Syracuse team that is No. 1 in the country and places the ball better than I have seen many people do.’

Though Buteux would put forth a solid effort, the damage was already done. Syracuse earned the chance to rest its starters for the fourth quarter, while giving valuable game experience to some of the younger guys off the bench.

‘We can coach and coach and coach, but you can’t give them game experience,’ Desko said. ‘But we got to do that tonight, and fortunately, the score let us do that.’

By the time the final horn sounded, Denver’s man-up opportunity when it was down just 4-2 in the first quarter seemed like a distant memory.

Instead, all Denver had to take away from the game were lessons. Lessons about how a two-goal deficit can change into a six-goal game in a matter of minutes. Lessons in how important it is to take advantage of any chances you get against an elite team.

‘This is what our guys need to learn to play like and compete at a higher level,’ Tierney said. ‘There is nothing like getting your ears boxed to figure out how hard you have to work. They are a great program, and there is no one better to learn from than the Orange men.’

restern@syr.edu