It’s been a rollarcoaster few days for Syracuse Men’s Lacrosse. On Thursday, it seemed like SU may have a chance of not even making the tournament, a result that would have devastated a team that started the season preseason #2.
Then a win against Notre Dame in the ACC Semifinals Friday meant that SU was more or less a lock, but probably as a non-seeded team.
Finally, Sunday afternoon, a win over Duke to bring home the ACC Tournament put SU very much in the conversation to host a NCAA Tournament game. And tonight, that was revealed to be just the case. Syracuse finished as the No. 6 seed (out of eight seeded teams), earning the right to host unseeded Harvard on Sunday.
Sound familiar? Well the two teams already have played each other this year. And things…didn’t go great for the Orange. Coming off a loss to Maryland, SU’s struggles continued with a 15-14 heartbreaker to Harvard at the Dome. The Orange got off to a 5-0 start, but the Crimson recovered and were able to get a key victory.
So what does a second matchup between the teams look like? Well it’s complicated. The end of the regular season was BAD for SU. The Orange dropped three games in a row, moving from first in the ACC to fourth. Not great.
But this weekend showed SU can compete with the best of the best. And the Orange pulled a somewhat favorable draw. Beating a team twice in a season (Harvard to Syracuse) is super hard, and then SU would play Princeton most likely who, of the top four seeds, may be the most vulnerable.
Win those two and SU gets to Memorial Day weekend. An easy task? No. But don’t count the Orange out quite yet.
