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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The game ended, their season ended, their collegiate careers ended, but Syracuse’s seniors didn’t want to leave the field of Scott Stadium.

Joey Spallina stood beneath the gray Virginia firmament, staring into bleachers emptying by the minute. He stayed on the field for another 10 minutes taking pictures and signing autographs for straggling fans. That’s the popularity he garnered representing the Orange. No matter the result, each contest is followed by the ritual. Spallina obliged, as always, moving through the postgame crush with the equanimity and savoir faire that defined his four years in orange.

“You can’t control those kids that are super excited just to see us, that might be the only chance that they get to see us play,” Spallina said postgame.

Fellow senior Finn Thomson crouched behind the goal, careworn and motionless until a member of SU’s support staff came to console him. Michael Leo and Billy Dwan III — also part of the touted 2022 recruiting class tasked with the Atlas-ian weight they embraced of bringing the Orange back to relevance — sidled aimlessly around the field in a kind of stunned peregrination, as if unsure where to go once the dream had expired.

As the grounds emptied, the Orange’s key players stayed.

This was how their collegiate careers ended. The 2022 class arrived with the goal of rescuing the program from its moribund malaise by winning a national championship. Spallina wanted four. They ended with zero. For the second straight year, No. 6 seed Syracuse’s (13-6, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) season concluded in the Final Four. Last year, it was a six-goal loss to Maryland that was over early. Saturday, it was a 15-7 defeat against No. 2 seed Notre Dame (13-2, 3-1 ACC).

“I’m incredibly proud of all of them, especially the senior group that’s helped make Syracuse a team that is the only team that’s been back-to-back Final Fours,” SU head coach Gary Gait said postgame. “We’re all upset, we’re all disappointed. We came up short.”

The Fighting Irish throttled SU. They went 5-of-6 on extra-man opportunities while blanking the Orange to a 0-of-5 man-up clip. The Orange’s offense was kept quiet, tying a season-low goal tally with Spallina logging zero. Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s attacking depth repeatedly cut through SU with inexorable efficiency.

“(The Fighting Irish) demonstrated what a great team they are and how well they could play, and they took it to us,” Gait said postgame.

It was the same dirge one last time for Gait.

“Unfortunately, like I always say, we didn’t make plays when we needed to,” he said.

A year ago, Spallina admitted Syracuse was simply “fat and happy” to have finally reached Championship Weekend after a 12-year exile. The Orange returned in 2026 believing the unfinished business was writ large. There was, as Spallina put it, “a lot on the bone” left.

This senior-heavy team from the middle of New York wanted a ring more than Gollum from Middle Earth. They’d promised they’d win one.

“Sadly, I lied, frankly,” Spallina said of the unfulfilled objective. “I said I was going to win a championship, and obviously we didn’t get it done. It’s the way sports is, it’s the way life is.”

He repeated that phrase — “it’s the way sports is, it’s the way life is” — three times during the press conference. He sought solace, some silver lining, something to attenuate the sting.

“Luckily enough for myself, I get to keep playing the sport that I love,” Spallina said of joining Premier Lacrosse League’s Maryland Whipsnakes. “Unluckily, I don’t get to do it wearing a Syracuse jersey.”

During Spallina and the 2022 class’ time with the Orange, they improved each season. As freshmen, they missed the NCAA Tournament. In 2024, SU reached the quarterfinals, falling narrowly to Denver. Last year, it made the Final Four, running into its kryptonite Terrapins. In 2026, the progression plateaued one step short of lacrosse Xanadu.

The seniors — Spallina, Leo, Thomson, Dwan, Luke Rhoa and more — leave Syracuse after returning it to relevance, Gait said.

Syracuse seniors Finn Thomson, Luke Rhoa and Joey Spallina embrace. Despite Saturday’s loss, they played crucial roles in bringing SU back to the Final Four. Eli Schwartz | Asst. Photo Editor

“The message as a team is that they should be proud of what they’ve been able to do,” Gait said. “They’ve done something that the other teams here haven’t done, and that’s back-to-back Final Fours.”

Despite returning to Championship Weekend for a second consecutive season — a place SU reached 25 of 27 years and won 10 titles from 1983-2009 — the Orange’s season ended in lopsided fashion again.

ND scored the first four goals. On grass, a playing surface where Gait is now 2-7 with Syracuse, the Orange’s offense started slow before trimming the deficit to 4-3 to close the first quarter.

In the second, Syracuse squandered a chance to get back in the game on a two-minute unreleasable man-up opportunity. ND head coach Kevin Corrigan credited his man-down unit killing all five of the Orange’s penalties as the “difference” in the Fighting Irish advancing to Monday’s national championship.

Syracuse was still searching for a complete game. Gait said it’d come Saturday but was mistaken. At halftime, the Orange trailed 7-4. Despite winning nine of 12 faceoffs, their offense was silenced besides a late first-quarter spurt.

But things only worsened in the second half.

Notre Dame built its biggest lead Saturday at 9-4 halfway through. And though Syracuse replied with three straight goals to pull within two, ND finished with six unanswered fourth-quarter goals.

Momentum evaporated most when SU’s Louis D’Agostino was called for a two-minute locked-in penalty for cross checking, contacting Matt Jeffery’s head with the shot clock expiring to end the third period. Notre Dame scored three goals on that penalty to begin the fourth, turning a two-goal lead into five.

Postgame, Gait called penalties a “fine line,” saying his team was “smart about playing tough and playing physical,” but admitting Syracuse lost on special teams — man-up and man-down.

As Notre Dame goals accumulated Syracuse’s heads hung. A five-score Notre Dame lead upped to six. Six to seven. Seven to eight. It was over by the final period’s early stages. The stands emptied accordingly.

An era ended Saturday night.

An era that returned Syracuse to back-to-back Final Fours for the first time since 2008 and 2009. An era that saw Spallina become the program’s all-time points leader and restore No. 22’s reputation. An era where the JMA Wireless Dome saw booming fan support. The 2022 recruiting class went 29-8 at the atmospheric venue — 8-0 this season.

The transformation feels even starker considering where it began.

In 2022, SU stumbled to 4-10 amid controversy, a miasma of futility emanating. It ended playing on Memorial Day weekend two years in a row.

When asked postgame about the fact that the class Gait coached four of his five years as head coach would never don Orange again, it hadn’t sunk in.

“It’s over, but it’s just over, so I haven’t sat and really reflected on it yet,” Gait said. “I wasn’t planning on going home after this game, but that’s the way the ball bounced.”

From the seniors’ four pivotal years, there’s no banner to hang in the rafters. But there are moments that will live on in SU lacrosse lore. Goalie Jimmy McCool’s double save against Yale in this year’s NCAA Tournament First Round. Spallina putting on a show on his native Long Island — twice. Beating Maryland for the first time since 2009 this season. Hoisting the ACC Tournament crown for the first time since 2016 last year. Oh so many highlights.

Still in full jersey in the press conference, a Gatorade in hand, Thomson advised the next players coming to Syracuse to relish those moments but not to settle for them.

“I’d say just don’t get fat and happy,” he began. “You got back-to-back Final Fours. It’s definitely a pretty special thing, but at the end of the day that wasn’t the goal, and that wasn’t the do-all-end-all. You got to get that national championship.”

For four years, this senior class chased the standard defining Syracuse lacrosse. They never reached the summit. But they certainly covered ground and climbed some heights. They dragged the program back toward the sport’s elite, restoring belief, relevance and expectation.

So when the seniors finally walked off the field Saturday night, they left Syracuse closer to the sport’s mountaintop than when they arrived.

“When we got to this place, it was in rougher shape, and we’ve built it back up to what it is now,” Thomson continued. “And obviously, we didn’t get the job done, but we left it in a better spot than we found it. It’s the best place to play lacrosse, so they got to understand that, and they just got to carry that culture forward.”

Published on May 23, 2026 at 5:38 pm
Contact Nicholas: njalumka@syr.edu | @nalumkal