The Syracuse Orange entered the 2026 season with a super-experienced core four returning to lead their offense.
The quartet of Joey Spallina, Michael Leo, Finn Thomson and Luke Rhoa were all going into their senior year, giving the Orange perhaps the best collection of returning veteran talent in the country.
The core was solid, but there was still the matter of filling out the supporting depth that would round out the group, especially with the departures of Owen Hiltz and Sammy English looming as critical
absences.
Gary Gait and Pat March spent much of the first half of the season searching. They knew the talent was there on the roster, but it was a matter of finding the best position for everyone on the field and the right combinations that put them all together to operate as one.
The Orange are known for their concept of ‘position-less offense’, but everyone still has to be assigned a starting position, and SU took their time getting into a groove in that regard.
Gait employed five different lineups for his starting six on offense in the first seven contests. It was games number six and seven before he used the same lineup in back-to-back games. There was a lack of continuity as Michael Leo, Finn Thomson and Payton Anderson got shuffled back-and-forth between attack and midfield, and Tyler McCarthy, Wyatt Hottle and others received different midfield assignments on both offense and defense.
But on the trip to Colorado, something clicked as Gait moved Leo back to attack in a swap with Anderson going back to midfield. With the exception of Bear sitting for the first quarter against Georgetown, the lineup of Spallina, Finn and Leo at attack with Rhoa, Hottle and Bear at midfield has remained for the past three games.
Yes, the three games since the latest switch was made is a smaller sample size than the seven games that preceded it, but the results have looked good across the board.
The Orange have averaged 16.0 goals per game the last three after 12.0 per before that. As a team, they came into the switch averaging 18.4 points per game, and have since upped that to 26.3. Virtually everyone has stepped up to contribute to that increase.
Joey Spallina had been averaging 4.6 points per, but has been at 5.7 the past three. His senior classmates of Leo, Finn and Rhoa had been combining to averaging exactly 7.0 points per game in the first seven games, but have really turned up the heat to 10.3 points per since Leo made the, seemingly, permanent move to attack.
Lastly, the rest of the supporting cast has really been pulling their weight and then some, too. All other offensive players outside the four seniors were combining for 5.4 points per game in the first seven, but have jumped that up to 9.0 per since.
If there’s a moment where this all came to pass, it might be the Hopkins game back on March 7. That was the last game that Michael Leo started at midfield, a game in which he went point-less despite the Orange’s 12-8 win.
Five days later, he started at attack against Air Force. In two of the three games since, he’s scored a career high five goals against the Falcons and last weekend against Georgetown. All told this season, Leo has averaged 2.0 points per game in the four games he’s started at midfield, compared to 4.2 points in the six games he’s started at attack. It’s not always this simple, but in Michael’s case it really does look like being on the field more often is translating to a big increase in production.
Speaking of, the opposite has actually been true for Payton Anderson. In the last two games he started at attack before the switch, against Penn and Hopkins, Bear scored zero points. In the three games since he moved back to midfield, he’s scored multiple goals in all three games and is averaging 3.0 points per.
At the moment, it looks like after a lot of different attempts, ‘Cuse has finally found a combination that is beneficial to all parties, most importantly the offense as a whole.
Time will tell, of course, as there is plenty more to come. For a team that’s played one of the most arduous schedules in the country, they’re about the enter into the most intense part of it: the ACC games.
They’ll immediately be tested once again by Duke’s defense and All-Americans like close defender Charlie Johnson and SSDM Aidan Maguire. The Blue Devils have the No. 2 scoring defense in the country, giving up 6.88 goals per game. They’ve played a significantly easier schedule than SU, to be sure, but those numbers are impressive no matter how you slice it.
The Orange’s numbers have been impressive, too, and they’ll be looking to keep the momentum going and the good times rolling on Saturday at 2 PM when they host Duke to open up ACC play.
