Syracuse women’s lacrosse earns at-large bid to NCAA Tournament
Syracuse women’s lacrosse earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and will face Brown in a first-round matchup on Friday. Leonardo Eriman | Photo Editor
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.
Syracuse earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament Sunday, missing out on a first-round bye for the first time since 2022. The ranking also marked the first time SU entered the tournament unseeded since 2018.
The Orange will open the tournament against Brown in the first round. From there, they would face the winner of No. 7 Yale and UAlbany. The remainder of SU’s quadrant of the bracket is filled out by Loyola Maryland, Stony Brook and No. 2 Boston College.
Syracuse opened the season as the No. 6 team in the nation and held that position as a top-10 team for most of its campaign. Despite tying BC for the strongest schedule in the country, per Lacrosse Reference, SU boasted an 8-4 record by Week 8. The Orange seemed primed to earn a top seed in the NCAA Tournament for the sixth consecutive season. Then, everything fell apart.
On April 2, Syracuse’s four-game winning streak came to a halt via a 13-10 road loss to then-No. 13 Yale. A one-sided victory over Cal a few days later momentarily restored SU’s confidence, but it didn’t last. Back-to-back losses to Virginia Tech and No. 2 Boston College to close the season saw the Orange fall to as low as No. 17 in the country, their worst ranking under head coach Kayla Treanor. The stretch flipped Syracuse’s campaign from championship aspirations to historic disappointment.
SU’s end-of-season struggles carried over to the ACC Tournament, where it was bounced in the first round by No. 3 Seed Stanford. Although SU held a three-goal cushion at the half, the Cardinal’s duo of Rylee Bouvier and Aliya Polisky’s 11 combined points spearheaded its come-from-behind win.
In 2024, Syracuse fell just short of its fourth-ever NCAA Championship game appearance. After knocking off Stony Brook and Yale, its season ended with a loss to BC in the semifinals for a second straight season. This year, SU will aim to capture its ever-elusive first national title in program history.
