Tim Barber stood on the sideline, clutching his helmet in his hand. The starting midfielder, who had started at attack in place of an injured Nick Piroli, just watched as his teammates played.

“It’s a luxury, I mean, for our whole team,” Barber said on Feb. 18 — three days before the game. “If someone goes down, you have people that you can pull down from the midfield. … You don’t miss a beat.”

But Barber had been flattened with a helmet-to-helmet hit at the end of the first half against Albany on Sunday. He stayed on one knee as the teams jogged off the field and stayed on the sideline when the game resumed.

Syracuse knew it’d have to replace 63 percent of its scoring coming into the season, including its entire starting midfield. But what it couldn’t have known is that just a game and a half into the year, it’d have to replace two starters sidelined with injuries.

Piroli, a graduate attacker, is “week-to-week” with a lower-body injury, head coach John Desko said, and he expects to have him back before the end of the year. Barber, a senior, is expected back “pretty quick,” but as of Sunday, Desko didn’t know whether or not he’d miss any games.

Redshirt sophomore attack Matt Lane stepped in when Barber had to move positions to replace Piroli. Freshman attack Devin Shewell entered when Barber went down. If both Piroli and Barber can’t go, Lane and Shewell will likely be in the starting lineup when the No. 3 Orange (2-0) faces Army on Sunday in the Carrier Dome at 4 p.m.

“You probably saw somewhat of the pecking order today,” Desko said after the game on Sunday, “with Shewell and (Nate) Solomon, and we want to get (Gale) Thorpe in also.”

Lane was the first in. Standing in a circle near midfield, he towered over the rest of the starting lineup. At 6 feet 7 inches, the tallest player in the Carrier Dome used his size to his advantage, muscling past a 7-inches shorter Albany midfielder, Ky Tarbell, before tossing the ball to Shewell for a goal.

Lane finished with two goals and two assists on the day.

“I really just took it as any other game,” Lane said of his first career start. “I was just happy to be out there and help the team win. I don’t really think I was that successful.”

Just over a minute into Shewell’s one half of play, he had already scored. SU caught Albany keeper Blaze Riorden out of the cage going after a groundball and Shewell cut to the net and caught a pass from Dylan Donahue for the goal.

Shewell ended the game with two goals on six shots.

Liam Sheehan | Asst. Photo Editor

“I thought he fit in very well,” Desko said. “One of his strengths is his shot. … He’s finding the back of the net as a freshman and that’s a good thing.”

Solomon, another freshman, was next off the bench after Shewell and Thorpe, a redshirt freshman, followed in the final minutes of the game.

Desko has praised Thorpe, labeling him as a scorer and saying he’d be the first player on the field on offense in the man-up situation. But because Donahue and Jordan Evans, both left-handed, were the two attacks remaining, righties Shewell and Solomon got the nod before the left-handed Thorpe to add variety to the lineup.

After Syracuse’s first game, a win over Siena on Feb. 13, Desko answered a question on if his players were all healthy with one word: “Yes.”

One game later, it took six sentences, 75 words, and the sentiment was more a matter of “we’ll see.”

“They’re our future,” Desko said of Shewell, Solomon, Thorpe and others on Feb. 13.

If Piroli and Barber can’t return for Sunday, they’ll also be the present.

Published on February 25, 2016 at 12:50 am

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus