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Look, there’s Michael Leo in Syracuse’s midfield, weaving through the forest of Maryland defenders like the cones he navigated on an otherwise-deserted field on Long Island. Finishing with his deadly left hand once he reaches the crease. Extending SU’s lead to two against the then-No. 1 Terrapins — the Orange’s kryptonite — 13 days ago.

Look again. Now Leo’s lining up at attack, receiving a crossfield pass from Joey Spallina — someone Leo competed against and then played with on The Island. There he is with the ball, sticking it into the top left corner of the net in the Orange’s season-opener against then-No. 17 Boston University.

Look. No, seriously. When you watch Syracuse lacrosse, a team chock-full of stars, Leo wants you to watch his movement. Where he pops up, when he pulls SU out of a mire, it’s offensive coordinator Pat March’s job to watch and coach Leo.

“We use Michael a lot to initiate the offense,” March said. “He’s able to make decisions. He’s able to feed the ball when he needs to, and he’s able to finish shots on the backside. I would say he’s a pretty complete player.”

Complete isn’t always flashy. Leo arrived in a vaunted 2022 recruiting class that included 10 top 100 players, according to Inside Lacrosse. Leo was the seventh-highest commit in SU’s class that year, while being the nation’s 26th best recruit.

And his impact is undeniable now. In his senior year, the Preseason Inside Lacrosse First Team All-American has seven goals and six assists thus far, shifting between attack and midfield. More broadly, he liberates Syracuse’s offense. Leo’s career Offensive Expected Goals Added is in the 98th percentile nationally, according to Lacrosse Reference.

“Coach March and Coach (Gary) Gait have done just a really good job of making the offense sort of a positionless offense,” Leo said. “Playing in the system for three years now, it kind of makes it easier for me just to go back and forth. I’ll just do whatever the offense needs to succeed.”

That might mean starting the offense up top. It might mean drifting to the backside and waiting for a skip pass. It might mean drawing the second slide and never getting credit. Leo thinks in terms of six men on offense moving as one.

Ilyan Sarech | Design Editor

Spallina has known Leo since the sixth grade, when they were just kids at a lacrosse tournament on Long Island. Spallina’s team may have “killed” Leo’s, but he still stood out.

“He was the only guy on their team who was scoring or doing anything,” Spallina recalled.

Once the lopsided game ended, Spallina approached Leo. Their two parents — Mike Leo and Joe Spallina — also struck up conversation.

The interaction set the stage for what occurred years later. In their last two years of high school, Leo and Spallina joined forces with Joe’s acclaimed Team 91 at the club level. It was a preview for their time at Syracuse — and teased Leo’s adaptability.

Before joining Team 91 — and for much of his time with the club — Leo was a left-sided attack. But when he committed to Syracuse, the Orange already had Owen Hiltz occupying the position. So, Joe began deploying him as a midfielder to prepare him for his anticipated role in central New York.

And that chemistry with Spallina? They’ve trained together on Long Island and have been roommates since their freshman year at SU. Spallina admits lacrosse is a relationship-based sport, and his relationship with Leo is a “pretty good one.”

Syracuse’s Michael Leo has been deployed at attack and midfield this season. The senior’s adaptability boosts his professional prospects Jacob Halsema | Staff Photographer

On Long Island, Leo honed his game working with Premier League Lacrosse midfielder Tom Schreiber — a fellow St. Anthony’s High School product. Schreiber started training Leo through group workouts in seventh grade. Frequent attendees included Harvard’s Jack Speidell and Jackson Greene, and Georgetown’s Liam and Rory Connor, Schreiber said. The training was “high intensity, high reps” and featured “a lot of feedback.”

The sessions aimed to deepen Leo’s “bag of tricks” as a playmaker and refine his right-handed shot, Schreiber said.

As he adjusted to his new position, Leo sought Schreiber’s advice. Schreiber admitted Leo was always a talented shooter, but he pushed him to improve as a dodger to hurt defenses in multiple ways. His training focused on enhancing his right hand — complementing his already-deadly left — and getting comfortable dodging in different situations on the field to carry the ball deeper into opposing defenses.

At Syracuse, that dodge shows up when possessions stall. Leo said he thrives in what he calls the “gray area.”

“When something’s not working, Coach March lets us kind of be our own player and create our own opportunities,” Leo said.

If the Orange face an air-tight defense, Leo is often the answer. March called him the most reliable downhill dodger. And, per his high school coach at St. Anthony’s, Keith Wieczorek, he doesn’t stop shooting.

“I always use the analogy, Carmelo Anthony could be 0-for-20, but he’s gonna take the next 10 shots. And if they fall, he’s the hero,” Wieczorek said. “So, I think shooters have to shoot. And Michael, as he matured, got into that. I think that was a big part of his game.”

At Virginia last season, he scored three goals in a game Syracuse needed to win, combining his catch-and-shoot prowess and dodging ability. A reactive, quickfire blast in traffic. A fake shot, drive and dispatch. A clean look he capitalized on. A 6-4 third-quarter deficit flipped into an 8-6 Syracuse lead, courtesy of Leo’s three scores. Afterward, former SU midfielder Sam English spoke to Leo’s spark.

“He’s an animal,” English said. “And we can trust him no matter what. When we needed him most he got it done today.”

His 1.68 goals per game average spoke for itself last year, but Leo defines a “good game” differently. It’s not just scoring. Really, it comes down to “dodging hard to the goal, drawing slides, hustling, giving effort.”

That mindset carries into tight goals. As a freshman against North Carolina, with 12 seconds left and the game tied 14-14, Leo took the reins. He beat his defender down the alley, went airborne, then coolly deposited his shot home close range. Game over. There’s Leo, unfazed as ever.

“No moment’s really too big for me,” Leo said. “When it gets in crunch time, I just focus on executing and making the next simple play.”

At St. Anthony’s, Wieczorek saw that same tendency to take the game by the scruff of the neck. But Gait added Leo’s just as happy to take a back seat rather than take over a game.

“He’ll do anything for this team,” Gait says. “If it means not scoring two or three goals and we win, he’s all in. Being willing to play attack one day, midfield the next, whatever it is.”

Leo’s adaptability can also translate to Premier League Lacrosse, where rosters are smaller, and he can fill multiple positions.

“Could he play attack? Could he play midfield? Could he kind of beat short sticks? Could he beat poles? I think he can do a lot of that stuff,” Schreiber said. “And guys who can put the ball in the back of the net tend to figure out a place to play.”

But Leo doesn’t want to focus on the pro level yet. He’s keyed in on his senior season. He knows the standard at SU doesn’t afford room for complacency.

“Every team still definitely still wants to beat Syracuse,” Leo said. “We can be ranked 20, 13, whatever, but we’re always going to have a target on our back.”

The Orange got hit squarely in the back on May 19, 2024. Towson, Maryland. NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals. Syracuse’s first trip to the tournament since 2021. A season-ending 10–8 loss to No. 5 seed Denver.

At the postgame press conference, Leo sat at the podium with a white towel over his head, eye black smeared across his face, the sting still fresh. He didn’t hide his devastation or his optimism.

“We’re going to be on top next year, for sure,” he said that day.

The prediction was slightly off — SU fell in the 2025 Final Four. But Leo doubled down following SU’s surmounting of then-No. 1 Maryland Feb. 13.

“We were always chasing to be No. 1 for three years,” Leo said following the UMD win. “So now, we’re actually being chased.”

One week later, Harvard caught up and hit the target. But Leo keeps looking forward. The season is young, and the goal of a national championship remains alive. On its road to the Memorial Day mountaintop, keep looking for how Leo disentangles SU because there’s only one way Leo wants people to look at his vaunted 2022 class.

“Hopefully, when they look back at me and my class, we have a national championship,” Leo said.

Published on February 26, 2026 at 12:04 am
Contact Nicholas: njalumka@syr.edu | @nalumkal