It’s been a good start to spring break for the Syracuse Orange, just a few days after picking up a huge win over rival Johns Hopkins down in Baltimore.
The week started off with some upward mobility in the national polls. Last week, ‘Cuse was No. 10 across the board in the rankings, and moved up in all of them as the result of last weekend.
The men moved up three spots to No. 7 in this week’s USILA Coaches Poll, while they moved up two spots to No. 8 in the media polls from both Inside Lacrosse and
USA Lacrosse. The Syracuse women are up one spot to 14 in the IWLCA Poll, are 15th in both Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse.
As SU heads off on their spring break trip to Colorado, they’re set to face unranked Air Force on Thursday before an unusual Monday meeting with Denver before heading home. The Pioneers are ranked No. 12 in this week’s coaches poll and USA Lacrosse poll, and No. 13 in the Inside Lacrosse poll.
Orange sweep weekly awards
For the third time in six weeks, ‘Cuse has swept the ACC weekly awards.
On Tuesday, Joey Spallina was named ACC Offensive Player of the Week and Jimmy McCool was named Co-Defensive Player of the Week alongside Notre Dame goalie Thomas Ricciardelli.
Spallina led the charge against Hopkins with seven points on four goals and three assists, having a hand in more than half the Orange’s goals, including three of the five tallies in a fourth quarter that helped secure the victory.
Meanwhile, McCool, as he has been all season, was a stalwart in cage. He finished with 14 saves, including nine in the second half, and a .636 save percentage to help hold Hopkins to their season-low in goals scored. On top of all that, he actually tallied an assist on his outlet pass to Billy Dwan before he ran up and scored his second transition goal of the game.
Both players have now received these awards multiple times this season. Spallina has earned three of the six OPOTW awards while McCool has earned two DPOTW awards. Of the 13 players to receive ACC weekly awards so far this season, seven of them have been from SU.
PLL/WLL Champ Series success
The Premier Lacrosse League and Women’s Lacrosse League recently completed their annual winter competition, the Championship Series, played in the Sixes format among the teams that finish in the top four of the standings from the previous season.
This year’s completion was quite a fruitful one for SU alums.
Back in January, former ‘Cuse midfielder Steven Brooks was named head coach of the Carolina Chaos. Two months later, Brooks led the scorpions to their first championship series win in an incredible start to his head coaching career.
Chaos actually lost their first two games of round robin play before reeling off three straight to take the title with a 24-16 win over the California Redwoods in the championship game.
Over on the women’s side, it was a tremendous series for ‘Cuse alums Emily Hawryschuk, Meg Carney and Katie Goodale, who all helped the New York Charging capture the women’s title in the second year of that event.
For the second straight year, Hawryschuk was a force in the event, tying with Izzy Scane for second overall with 23 points on 17 goals, 1 two-point goal and four assists. Charlotte North led all scorers with 25 points.
Meg Carney was just as impactful, finishing fourth in the event with 19 points on 11 goals, 1 two-point goal and six assists. Katie Goodale was great on the defensive end for the Charging with 10 ground balls, six caused turnovers and a goal.
Hawryschuk and Carney both came up big in the title game. Emily tied for the game-high with six points on five goals and an assist, while Meg had five points on a hat trick and two assists.
Congratulations to Steven, Emily, Meg and Katie on their new hardware!
