HAMILTON, N.Y. — Oyvind Alseth boomed a back-post cross from about 40 yards away to Chris Nanco, who was running to the back post. The shifty forward blasted the ball into the goalie’s chest on one bounce and weakly chipped the rebound over the goalie, who was laying on the slick turf.

“I think we’re going to have to work on that because I think it was a great cross,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said of Alseth not getting an assist for the service. “… I thought it was a wonderful cross that Chris (Nanco) got on the end of.”

But on the sideline, Korab Syla had just finished being talked to by McIntyre. For the second straight game he was pulled from the game for freshman Andreas Jenssen, pushing Alseth from the central midfield out on the right wing.

The substitution allowed Alseth to cross in services, the very first garnering the game’s winning goal. Another Ben Polk goal helped SU (6-2-1, 1-1-1 Atlantic Coast) put away Colgate (4-3-1, 1-0 Patriot) at Beyer-Small ’76 Field on Tuesday night.

“It was just when we were just starting to kind of build a little bit of momentum in the game,” McIntyre said, “so it was an important goal for us.”

When Alseth moved out wide, he gave SU “better quality,” McIntyre said. Aside from the goal, McIntyre pointed out when the midfielder crossed a ball on a corner to the near post for Noah Rhynhart. The forward ran to the post, jumping to smack the ball out of the air. Instead, a Colgate player barely saved the cross, diving and heading it over the endline.

Normally Syla provides pace down the right side of the field, but McIntyre said that even Syla would admit his play in SU’s most recent game against Pittsburgh and the start against Colgate weren’t his best. Subbing in Jenssen again gave Alseth the chance to play out wide and send services Syla hadn’t been.

“Nanco did a really good job. It was a deep cross, it was an early cross, it was a lot of ground he had to cover to get there,” Polk said. “… With Oyvind, you’ve just got to gamble. You know it’s a good service. Get in and run into the 6-yard box and that’s where you score your goals.”

McIntyre yanked Syla 30 minutes into the Orange’s last game against Pittsburgh, but it only took 22 minutes against Colgate. When Syla came off the field, he sat next to McIntyre to the left of the bench. McIntyre told the midfielder to stay positive and play with confidence.

By the time Nanco knocked in the first goal of the game just less than two minutes later, Syla was sitting among teammates, who were wearing puffy blue jackets emblazoned with a block S, with a towel around his neck and his uniform on.

Syla, who eventually dressed in his blue jacket while waiting on the bench, stripped off the warm clothing and entered with just over 15 minutes left in the game, about the same time he reentered the Pittsburgh game.

“I guess just be more aggressive as I’ve been basically all season,” Syla said. “… be dangerous, get crosses in, get shots.”

For insurance, midfielder Julian Buescher headed the ball down to midfielder Juuso Pasanen with 12 minutes left. Polk, who was coming off a hat trick against Pittsburgh, intercepted Pasanen’s shot from the top of the box and pounded the ball into the bottom right side of the net.

Colgate goalie Ricky Brown hardly moved.

“We did enough to win the game,” McIntyre said. “… if you don’t take that chance from Chris, there’s very thin margins of winning and losing.”

Published on September 29, 2015 at 10:49 pm

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati