Our list of the Top 100 SU athletes continues here with another SU lacrosse legend.
You can find the Fizz’s SU Top 100 list here. Make sure you keep checking in to see who made the list and where they are ranked!
Syracuse has been home to one of the greatest lacrosse programs in collegiate history. Some great names have come through the school, Jim Brown, the Gait brothers, the Powell family and so many more. In the mid-1990s, Ric Beardsley made his way to CNY to be the next great defenseman donning Orange.
Beardsley was born in Cape Coral, Florida. He attended Lakeland High School where his talents on the lacrosse field started to show. He set his school record for points by a defenseman and was named an All-American twice. When he got to Syracuse in 1992 he made an immediate impact. He won the starting job as a freshman and earned All-American honorable mention honors. The kid from Florida joined the program at a time in which winning was imperative.
Roy Simmons Jr. was all about winning and he’d done plenty of it. By the time Beardsley showed up, SU was one year removed from three consecutive championship seasons, something the 5’11’’ 198 lb defenseman wanted to experience for himself. Soon he would. In 1993, Beardsley’s Sophomore season, the wins kept coming and it was in part thanks to incredible defensive play. Ric earned All-American Second Team honors on his way to helping SU to its 5th NCAA championship. Then two years later, as a Senior, Beardsley was named as a captain and played out of his skin to earn honors as a First Team All-American. That season he anchored a strong defense that helped pave the way for the 6th NCAA championship in SU lacrosse history.
Beardsley finished up his time with the Orange with an impressive resume, to say the least. A four-time All-American defenseman, one of four captains his senior year, a player who always had a knack of knowing where the ball was, he was always one of the top four players on the team in groundballs every season, a two-time national champion, and named to the 1995 NCAA tournament All-Tournament Team. It is absolutely safe to say that Beardsley will go down in SU history as not only one of the greatest defensemen to put on a Syracuse uniform but one of the greatest lacrosse players the school has had the privilege to have.
He absolutely deserves a spot on this list. There’s even an argument to say he deserves to be a bit higher.
