SU men’s lacrosse drops to No. 10 in IL Top 20 Poll
Despite not playing a game last week, Syracuse dropped to No. 10 in the Inside Lacrosse Week 6 Poll. Meghan Hendricks | Senior Staff Photographer
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Syracuse men’s lacrosse dropped to No. 10 in Inside Lacrosse’s Top 20 Poll, which was released Monday.
After defeating rival then-No. 7 Johns Hopkins 13-10 on March 9 for their first top-10 win of the season, the Orange moved from No. 11 to No. 9 in the rankings before not playing this past week. The victory also boosted SU’s NCAA Tournament resume after two debilitating losses to No. 1 Maryland and then-No. 15 Harvard.
Plus, SU swept the Atlantic Coast Conference weekly awards on March 11 for the first time this campaign after goalie Jimmy McCool was named the conference’s Defender of the Week for his 12-save performance and attack Owen Hiltz earned ACC Offensive Player of the Week following his five-points (four goals, one assist) against JHU.
The off week also allowed time for SU to rest, as head coach Gary Gait said attack Finn Thomson would be “out for a while” with an upper-body injury after the win over the Blue Jays. Though Gait said he expects Thomson, who is 10th in the nation and leads Syracuse with a .519 shooting percentage, to return “in a couple of weeks.”
After a brief reprieve at the halfway mark of their season, the Orange’s opposition heats up as they enter ACC play. SU hosts Manhattan Tuesday before six more matchups to conclude its regular season.
Syracuse has another nonconference bout against No. 18 Colgate Saturday, then has its ACC opener at now-unranked Virginia on March 29. Then, SU hosts No. 7 Notre Dame on April 5 and has its final nonconference matchup with No. 4 Cornell on Long Island on April 12. The Orange bookend their season with games against the ACC schools from Tobacco Road, traveling to No. 8 Duke on April 19 and finishing at home versus No. 5 North Carolina on April 26.
