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Casey Darnell EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Emma Folts MANAGING EDITOR

KJ Edelman DIGITAL MANAGING EDITOR

Sports Editor Roshan Fernandez Presentation Director Shannon Kirkpatrick Photo Editor Emily Steinberger Design Editor Maya Goosmann Asst. Sports Editor Allie Kaylor Asst. Sports Editor Skyler Rivera Asst. Digital Editor Ella Plowman Asst. Digital Editor Anish Vasudevan Asst. Copy Editor Anthony Alandt Asst. Copy Editor Connor Smith General Manager Mike Dooling Advertising Rep. Mark Nash Business Asst.

Tim Bennett Circulation Manager Steve Schultz Student Delivery Agent Dan Brownell

Cover Illustration by Nabeeha Anwar

Illustration Editor

Inside photo illustrations by Emily Steinberger

Photo Editor

Nabeeha Anwar

Illustration Editor

Photos by Will Fudge

Staff Photographer

Jordan Phelps

Staff Photographer

Photos courtesy of SU Athletics

Dear readers, A year ago, Syracuse men’s lacrosse ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time since 2017, and the women’s team sat at No. 4. Both programs were trending upward, back on the path toward an NCAA lacrosse championship.

But in March, COVID-19 abruptly shut down Syracuse’s promising seasons. The weeks that followed, though, epitomized the immense expectations surrounding Syracuse lacrosse’s 2021 season.

Throughout April and May, following the NCAA’s announcement that granted spring athletes an extra year of eligibility, 10 of 11 Syracuse women’s lacrosse seniors announced they’d return. On the men’s side, the program brought back its entire starting lineup, including Tucker Dordevic, Brendan Curry and Jamie Trimboli.

They’ll pair with attack Chase Scanlan, who transferred from Loyola in 2020 to be closer to home.

After high school, he played lacrosse across the world, but ultimately, his transfer to Syracuse has brought him closer to the community he grew up in.

Alongside Scanlan, Peter Dearth’s “selfless” transition from offensive to defensive midfielder three years ago gave, and continues to give, Syracuse the versatility it needs. And offensive coordinator Pat March is the architect behind the nation’s sixth-best scoring offense that fueled No. 1 Syracuse last season.

For the women’s team, Meaghan Tyrrell’s awareness near the goal complements top scorers Hawryschuk and Megan Carney. Tyrrell is joined by young star Bianca Chevarie, the third-shortest player on the team, who played among players twice her age on the Canadian national team. On the backline, Simkins returns for a fifth year to anchor SU years after she nearly quit lacrosse.

These six will help lead Syracuse’s pursuits toward a national championship as both groups navigate an altered 2021 season amid a pandemic. And they’ll help answer one looming question: Is this the year?

Welcome to The Daily Orange’s 2021 Lacrosse Guide.

Thanks for reading, Roshan Fernandez, sports editor

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CLOSE TO HOME

Chase Scanlan’s transfer to Syracuse brought him closer to the community he once left

By Andrew Crane

senior staff writer

R

ob Genco knew he had to get his youth Upstate FCA Lacrosse team up to the Carrier Dome. His 11-year old players kept asking about Chase Scanlan — the Chase Scanlan — begging Genco to try and get him to attend one of their practices. They were in awe that Genco had coached Scanlan for two years in high school, that Genco even knew him.

One of his players’ parents had snapped a photo of their son holding a U.S. Lacrosse Magazine that featured Scanlan on the cover in his new Syracuse jersey. Another sent a similar portrait, this time with their son reading the article. So, Genco bought 100 tickets to the Orange’s 2020 seasonopener against Colgate, Scanlan’s first game with SU after transferring from Loyola. Both of Scanlan’s parents and other family members were in attendance, along with Genco, his players and their families. All found it much easier to make a two-hour trip to Syracuse instead of a six-plus one to Loyola, in Baltimore.

They all rose in anticipation as a pass swung to Scanlan with six minutes left in the opening quarter and he ripped a bouncing shot past the Colgate goalie. Two minutes later, they rose again. Then, for five more goals throughout the rest of the win.

“It was a dream come true,” Scanlan said postgame.

After leaving the press conference underneath the Carrier Dome, Scanlan tossed on a sweatshirt and circled back to the 100 level, where Genco and his players waited — posing for photos in front of a shuttered concession stand. It reminded Genco of when Scanlan interacted with every waiter and every customer when the two would eat pregame

dinners at Aunt Millie’s diner three years earlier.

In between bites of his chicken finger melt, the Silver Creek High School sophomore star who totaled 104 goals and 75 assists that year made small talk. They had all the time in the world then.

When he was a freshman at Loyola in 2019, though, and was tallying the most goals by a first-year midfielder that year, the same community wasn’t present. His mother, Heather Kettle; his father, Thomas Scanlan; and occasionally a cousin or two could make the games, but that was mostly it.

Scanlan thrived in the small-town, tight-knit environment of the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation of Indians in Irving, New York, but he left after his sophomore year at Silver Creek. He had to, he said, if he was going to improve to a point where a professional career could follow. A transfer to IMG Academy represented the first step.

That transfer started a two-year period where Scanlan traveled to Florida, Baltimore, British Columbia, Israel and Toronto to play games.

“Lacrosse sticks (have) taken him far in life,” Thomas said. But even after all those trips, all those opportunities to showcase his development as a player, he ended up back in the transfer portal after one year with the Greyhounds.

“I talked to my family, and they were like, ‘We can come to your games. Your community can come to your games,” Scanlan told The Daily Orange last January. “I’ve never had a thought of leaving (Syracuse), I’ve never had a thought where I don’t like this place. I love it.”

So, maybe this was where Scanlan needed to be: In the Carrier Dome against Colgate, positioned by the post, donning a white Syracuse see scanlan page 11

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HEADS UP How Meaghan Tyrrell’s style of play gives her more scoring opportunities

By Allie Kaylor

asst. sports editor

M

egan Carney raced along the eight-meter arc, put her head down and charged. In her sight was Meaghan Tyrrell, who had a different plan.

Tyrrell accepted Carney’s feed and kept her head up. In front of Tyrrell was a Northwestern defender who would soon be on the receiving end of a face dodge and a wide-open goal.

Tyrrell would go on to score four more times en route to a 16-11 upset win in Evanston, Illinois. To those that knew her best, an offensive explosion like this was no surprise. But her offensive style doesn’t fit the mold of many other top college attacks.

While Syracuse leading scorer Emily Hawryschuk prefers to bulldoze toward the goal and embrace contact, Tyrrell keeps her head up while weaving through an opponent’s defense, she said.

Other elite attacks keep their heads down, thinking how and where they can place the ball — but that’s not entirely Tyrrell’s strategy. By keeping her head up, she has an advantage when looking for an open pass with a plethora of options ahead of her to maneuver around a defense, she said.

“I think it definitely leads to more opportunities to actually get a goal,” Tyrrell said.

Her eyes-up, head-up approach is what led a freshman Tyrrell to drop 57 points — 37 goals,

20 assists — in an already packed offense with the likes of Carney, Hawryschuk and then-senior Nicole Levy. After the shortened 2020 season, Tyrrell is heading into her junior year with heightened expectations. Her style of play is what she and her team think will guide No. 3 Syracuse to another deep run in the NCAA tournament.

“She’s still scratching the surface of her abilities,” said Al Bertolone, Tyrrell’s coach at Mt. Sinai High School. “I’m very proud of watching her excel at that next level.”

As a kid, Tyrrell was committed to soccer. She practiced multiple times a week and saw herself potentially playing in high school and beyond. But as lacrosse’s popularity spread around Long Island, she joined her friends on the lacrosse field instead.

She fell in love with the sport after joining her school team. One of her coaches convinced her to try out for the Long Island “Elite” Yellow Jackets, a local travel team he also coached for. Although she was relatively new to the sport, she made the team and spent the summer traveling around the region, competing against other teams along the East Coast.

When many of her teammates in both high school and club were committing to Division I schools, she realized she could do the same down the line if she chose lacrosse over soccer.

“Around eighth grade, I decided that it was something I wanted to do in college,” Tyrrell said.

“Ever since then, I’ve been straight lacrosse.”

Tyrrell started her lacrosse career as a

defender, which helps her in her current role as an attack. Her defensive background gives her better scoring opportunities, she said, because she can anticipate what defenses will run.

Once the midfielders push the ball into an offensive position, Tyrrell immediately assesses which defenders are near her, what type of defense they’re running and where defenders will be next.

“I can still remember, even though I was younger, how a man-to-man would work and what their thought processes are,” Tyrrell said. “I can keep up with the defense’s thoughts and their actions.”

Against Canisius last year, the Golden Griffins were running a zone defense. As the Orange rotated around the perimeter, Tyrrell kept her head up and watched the defenders shift as the Orange passed around the arc. When she found an opening in front of the goal, she ran directly to it and motioned to Sam Swart, who fed her the first goal of the game less than a minute in.

She later ran from behind the goal and to the edge of the eight-meter arc, dodging a Canisius defender and feeding a perfect pass to a wideopen Sierra Cockerille, who scored to give the Orange a 10-3 lead.

“Her head was always up, she was a complete attacker,” Bertolone said. “Offensively, she could beat you on the dodge. She could feed like she was a quarterback.”

Since meeting Tyrrell as a seventh-grader,

see tyrrell page 14

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COMMANDER OF THE FIELD Pat March’s rise from coaching D-III to crafting Syracuse’s offense

By Arabdho Majumder senior staff writer

P

at March was the only offensive player Jon Weston saw at his youth goalie clinics in Glen Burnie, Maryland. In middle school, March would sit on the sidelines and watch Weston — who was known as “The Goalieman” — to try and piece together how to beat goalies.

March asked plenty of questions, too: What was the hardest shot to save? Which side was optimal for him to be shooting from?

“He’s been a student of the game, but I think it came from it was always fun for him,” March’s father Patrick said. “I think it still is.”

Ten years into his coaching career, March is still constantly learning. Former Princeton midfielder Austin Sims, who played two years under the SU assistant coach, called him a “lax rat.” And that, in part, fueled a meteoric rise from coaching at the Division III level to becoming the offensive coordinator at his childhood-favorite school, Syracuse, all in under 10 years.

After moving to Syracuse from Princeton before the shortened 2020 season, March’s offense ranked sixth in the nation for goals per game, up from 15th the year prior. All six offensive starters were on pace to set career-highs in production with a system utilizing more wing and alley dodges. He also helped secure commitments of two offensive five-stars for the class of 2022, including Joey Spallina, the class’s No. 1 player.

“He brought in some new schemes for us, and he still lets us definitely play our game, but he puts us in some great spots to find success,” redshirt fifth-year attack Stephen Rehfuss said. “He’s been great for us.”

March received his first stick at 2 years old, and soon, everything revolved around lacrosse.

His grandmother, who is Cherokee, shared the Native American lacrosse connection with him from an early age.

When playing at recruiting tournaments, March attended adjoining player clinics and even went with Patrick, now the lacrosse head coach at Old Mill (Maryland) Senior High School, to coaching conventions while in high school.

In 1998, when March was in elementary school, he and Patrick attended every game of the World Lacrosse Championship at Johns Hopkins.

At one game, Patrick asked March, “Where have you been the last 20 minutes?”

“Oh, I was playing catch with Casey Powell,” March replied.

A few years later, the Baltimore Bayhawks were founded as part of Major League Lacrosse, and March would watch the team’s practices with friends.

“He was meeting people around the sport and everything,” Patrick said. “And that was the thing. Lacrosse is so different than any other sport where ... a little kid can just walk up to them, and they’ll play catch with them, you know, they’ll talk to them and everything.”

During the all-star game of a recruiting tournament March’s senior year, he caught the ball

off a ride and stormed in on a breakaway. He tucked his stick between his legs and rolled forward, shooting as he popped back up from the ground. From the sidelines, D-III Roanoke College assistant coach Carl Haas couldn’t believe March even tried the move, let alone scored with it. March learned the trick from former Princeton midfielder Josh White at a day camp, Patrick said, and it packaged March’s confidence and creativity on the field.

“I was like, that’s pretty, you know, you got a lot of gumption to do something like that,” Haas said.

March filled the final offensive spot in the Maroons’ recruiting class late in his senior year, Roanoke head coach Bill Pilat said. They needed a left-handed player at the time, and March fit the bill. Pilat remembered initially saying that March looked “too small” when seeing tape of him. But Haas pushed for the Maroons to sign March.

“Carl really liked Pat, really said he thought he could be a great player,” Pilat said. “And Carl was right.”

March played four years at Roanoke, finishing with the fifth-most points (243) and fourth-most goals (152) in program history. He still shares the record for most assists (6) in a single game with the school and earned honorable mention AllAmerican honors twice.

“We were really, really lucky to get him at Roanoke,” Haas said. “And he helped the team get to achieve some of those heights that I think will probably live on in a lot of the memories of some of see march page 11

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RUN IT BACK

By Skyler Rivera

asst. sports editor

B

efore Ella Simkins became a threeyear starter and one of the anchors of Syracuse’s defense, she wanted to quit lacrosse.

The Long Island “Elite” Yellow Jackets dropped the high school junior down several division teams, and Simkins thought she had no other option. She started to lose interest in the game, her mom Allison Simkins recalled. But Allison held out hope, telling her daughter to try out for a new team.

Allison saw a poster for the Long Island Top Guns and convinced her daughter to try out in a “last ditch effort.” She reluctantly did, and days later, Simkins was surprised to find out she had made the roster for what Allison described as one of the top teams in the country.

“They recognize talent,” Allison said. “And they were a huge impact on why she’s at Syracuse now, too.”

Seven years later, Simkins is a constant in Syracuse’s backline — she’s started 48 consecutive games for the Orange since her sophomore season. A switch from midfielder to defender her sophomore year, initiated by former Syracuse assistant coach Regy Thorpe, helped Simkins embrace her aggressive playing style and strong build. Now a graduate student, Simkins is back and in search of the national title that’s alluded

Ella Simkins almost quit lacrosse in high school. Now, she’s a constant in Syracuse’s backline. her and the Orange for years.

“My whole sports journey has just taught me that however much effort that you put into something is what you’re going to get in return,” Simkins said.

Unlike teammate Sam Swart, who committed to play at SU in eighth grade, Simkins didn’t know where she was going to college until her senior year — before high school, she didn’t even know what sport she was going to play.

In middle school, Simkins juggled competitive swimming practice and afternoon lacrosse training. She climbed the ranks in both sports, but when pressured to focus on one, she favored the social aspect of lacrosse over swimming.

Simkins joined the Top Guns’ travel team as a junior, two years after most of her teammates.

Despite the late start, she easily fit in with the

team’s culture, head coach Andrew Smith said.

She was one of Top Guns’ best players, and she won a youth national championship with them after the club lost the year prior to her arrival.

“Her athletic ability and lacrosse prowess, that stood out, for sure,” Smith said. “I mean, you just watch her play. She plays with a different tenacity than most kids.”

By the end of her first season with the Top Guns, Syracuse gave her a call. Simkins’ muscular build caught Syracuse’s eye. She was recruited as a midfielder during her junior year in high school, but she didn’t commit until later that year.

But when she arrived at Syracuse, she encountered a roster already filled with midfielders of All-Atlantic Coast Conference caliber, such as Natalie Wallon. She played in five games and collected one ground ball the entire season. By the end of her freshman year, Thorpe encouraged Simkins to transition to defense.

“I said, ‘I’m down to make the shift,’” Simkins said. “And then my sophomore year, the first day that we went to fall ball practice, I started playing defense religiously and every day.”

Simkins started in all 19 games for the Orange and led the team with 18 caused turnovers during her sophomore season.

While switching positions came naturally to Simkins, she had more difficulty off the field. As a kindergartener, she developed slower than her peers, Allison said, and was diagnosed with a learning disability that affected her in the classroom.

see simkins page 12

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SELFLESS SWITCH

By Tim Nolan staff writer

O

n Army’s last chance to recover from a two-goal deficit, Peter Dearth readied himself at the block ‘S’. The Black Knights’ James Pryor sprinted back to the 45-yard line, but Dearth, then a Syracuse senior, anticipated the clearance attempt. He lunged, extending his left arm and cradling the one-handed interception to smother any last hope for Army.

Like most games since his shift to defensive midfield, Dearth didn’t register a goal that afternoon. But as he tumbled onto the far-side 40-yard marker, he somersaulted to his feet and evaded Pryor one last time before flipping to Owen Seebold to carry into the attack area. Just over 5,400 fans packed the Carrier Dome, and Dearth’s clutch play, ensuing fist pump and holler at midfield spurned them to their feet.

Now, Dearth is back for a fifth season, and he’s trying to lead No. 3 Syracuse to its first national title since 2009. He’s a preseason second-team All-American and SU’s first three-time team captain. But none of those feats would be possible had he not adopted a defensive role three years ago.

At Ridgefield (Conn.) High School, Dearth was a two-time All-American offensive midfielder, but it’s his switch to defensive midfield — one that he bought into quickly — that’s given SU the versatility it needs to capture old glory.

“That’s one of the reasons Peter is a captain,” head coach John Desko said. “He’s done what’s best for the team, on and off the field.”

From the start of his freshman season, Dearth was instantly thrust into the rotation.

After four goals in 11 appearances his first season, the midfielder began his sophomore season on SU’s starting midfield line as attacking mid. Five games later, he hadn’t scored, and his playing time

With a shift to defensive midfielder, Peter Dearth fulfills SU’s expectations diminished — and so did his confidence in his abilities to continue playing there.

Rather than prolong what he now calls a “horrible” start, Dearth went to assistant coach Lelan Rogers to ask about a switch to defensive midfield in March 2018. ESPN analyst and former Syracuse All-American Paul Carcaterra likened the adjustment to going “from linebacker to safety.”

Responsibilities increase, but it was a better fit for Dearth, one of the best athletes on the field. So, Rogers welcomed what Drake Porter called “such a selfless” decision — sacrificing offensive glory for the betterment of the team.

In moving to defense — which was “definitely a big shift,” according to Carcaterra — Dearth’s combination of size, speed and offensive IQ had the potential to revitalize SU’s transition game.

While most defensive midfielders leave the field once six-on-six offense commences, Dearth could carry himself and use his background as an attack to contribute on the other end. Two weeks after the switch, Dearth scored his first goal of the season after stifling a Duke clearance and taking it himself.

Despite only starting five of 15 games that year, Dearth finished ninth on the team with 24 ground balls. He added five points and five caused turnovers. His transition was expedited by the mentorship of Paolo Ciferri and Joe Gillis, two

defensive middies from Dearth’s freshman year.

“I think when I made the switch over to defense, it really just helped me use my athleticism and was a more natural fit for me as a position,” Dearth said.

Ciferri and Gillis taught Dearth “more than they know” about on-ball and off-ball positioning, and more importantly, about how to be a defensive leader, Dearth said. With his junior year on the horizon, Dearth wanted to be the one setting the example.

Dearth spent the 2018 offseason focused primarily on strength-building. Niche offensive activities such as wall ball and shooting were replaced with intense workouts that isolated multiple muscle groups at once. Desko recognized Dearth’s efforts by naming him the lone junior captain alongside four seniors.

In 2019, another season devoid of gaudy stats and offensive notoriety, Dearth still earned an All-American honorable mention on a team that went just 9-5. Porter finished All-Atlantic Coast and said, while much of Dearth’s impact doesn’t show in the stat sheets, he’s invaluable at helping Porter clear.

But the source of the decision to make the switch — and the sacrifices that came with it — was incomplete. Dearth dreamed of winning a national championship at Syracuse “since I picked up a stick in first grade,” he said.

Growing up, Dearth had two built-in combatants in his older brother, Cal, now a Boston Cannons attack, and his younger brother, Ray, who’s a Harvard-commit. Dearth’s father Brian took the boys to watch Duke’s CJ Costabile at New London (Conn.) High School and Johns Hopkins’ John Ranagan in Yorktown Heights, New York, according to Inside Lacrosse. For Dearth, these games doubled as entertainment and a learning experience. see dearth page 14

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IS THIS TH Syracuse has already secured its future.

This year isn’t championship-or-bust.

By Arabdho Majumder senior staff writer

N

ational championships attract the future. Nowhere are more young eyes gathered in the lacrosse community than on Memorial Day weekend. Kids that will become part of recruiting classes six or seven years down the line are glued to their TVs, searching for a lasting memory they’ll recall when sifting through their college offers.

Between 1983 and 2004, Syracuse never missed that final weekend of college lacrosse. The Orange won the national championship eight times during that stretch. Since then, SU reached the Final Four on just four occasions. In the last decade, that’s dwindled to just one appearance on college lacrosse’s biggest stage and zero titles since 2009.

Recruiting suffered as a result. Each of the four years immediately following the Orange’s 2009 championship, Inside Lacrosse ranked their recruiting classes in the top 10. Twice in that span, IL deemed them No. 2 in the country in that regard. But after its 2014 move to the Atlantic Coast Conference, Syracuse’s recruiting fell out of the top 10, except in 2015 and 2017.

Jordan Evans (2013) remains the last No. 1 recruit to play for the Orange. They struggled to even snag top-15 players on IL’s Power 100 lists. Lucas Quinn changed that in 2017, and then came Owen Hiltz in the class of 2020.

Hiltz marked a major turning point for the program, along with the acquisition of Chase Scanlan through the transfer portal and the hiring of coach Pat March. The trio represents the shortcomings of the past decade and the ways Syracuse is starting to correct them. It’s a sign that the Orange are prepared to compete at the elite level they traditionally have but in a new college lacrosse landscape, one with four first-time champions in the last decade.

There are always championship aspirations and expectations for the 10-time champion Orange. But now, there’s no rush. The program continues trending in the right direction even without the validation a trophy brings.

Hiltz originally signed to Denver. But, in October of 2019, the No. 2 recruit in the class of 2020 flipped to SU largely because of March’s recruiting and relationship with Hiltz’s prep school head coach, Jon Posner.

Three years earlier, Scanlan did the reverse. He initially committed to the Orange, then reopened his recruitment in 2016 because he worried about his Haudenosaunee Promise Program scholarship. The scholarship covers tuition and fees for Indigenous people who reside on the territory of a nation in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which is made up of six Indigenous nations, including the Onondaga Nation.

“I felt because they didn’t have any money invested in me they (wouldn’t) feel obligated to giving me a chance,” Scanlan told The Daily Orange in 2019.

He chose Loyola and played his freshman year there before transferring and choosing SU once again. Head coach John Desko traveled five hours by car to watch Scanlan play in an Ontario box lacrosse tournament, showing commitment to Scanlan, who would become the Orange’s first No. 22 since Evans. Scanlan led Syracuse in scoring last season with 18 goals and 23 points.

March is the future of Syracuse. Coming over from Princeton last year, March revamped the Orange’s offense into the sixth-best scoring-per-game unit in the nation, up from 15th the year prior. He’s the young coach who numerous recent commits have singled out as the leading voice during recruitment calls. March helped secure three five-star commits in the class of 2022, including No. 1 Joey Spallina. Three five-stars have committed to SU in the past four years.

From the success of last year’s shortened season, a championship in 2021 is by no means out of the question. While Syracuse ranked No. 5 in Inside Lacrosse preseason rankings last year, the Orange climbed the rankings to No. 1 before the season was canceled in early March. They dominated early-season foes, scoring 21 goals twice in their five games.

SU’s top midfield line of Jamie Trimboli, Brendan Curry and Tucker Dordevic stands testament to Syracuse’s current success on the field. They scored all but one goal in Syracuse’s stiffest test last season against Army, which ended the season ranked No. 7 in the country. The trio returns this year for one last season together.

But the path to East Hartford, Connecticut for a Final Four game may be the toughest ever. Duke secured the best player in college lacrosse, Michael Sowers, and No. 1 incoming freshman, Brennan O’Neill. In the ACC alone, all five teams are ranked to start the season.

The goal for this year’s Orange team remains the same, however.

“It’s always been national championship or bust, and this year’s definitely no different,” attack Stephen Rehfuss said.

For players in their final year at SU, this is likely their best chance of reaching the top, too.

“Since I’ve been here, this is probably the most talented team top-to-bottom and the most complete team that’s played together,” Rehfuss, a redshirt fifth year, said in a preseason press conference on Feb. 11.

For the program, though, a championship this year would be an ornament. There’s no rush for a title. The talent pipeline is flowing, and the pieces are in place for future success. Even if this year may not end as Syracuse’s year, its time is coming. armajumd@syr.edu @aromajumder

HE YEAR? This needs be the year for Syracuse women’s lacrosse

By Tim Nolan staff writer

I

n 2019, head coach Gary Gait declared that Syracuse would be “a power-four team that competes for championships.” The Orange came up short, losing in the NCAA quarterfinals against then-No. 4 Northwestern 18-14.

As the Orange pursued their first-ever national title in 2020, Syracuse was that “power-four team,” finishing at No. 4 in Inside Lacrosse’s rankings before the season got cut short due to the pandemic. A week ahead of the Syracuse-Northwestern rematch Feb. 22, 2020, Kerry Defliese, second-team preseason All-American, said SU would come out “guns blazing.” Senior Mary Rahal’s eyes widened when talking about revenge.

Then-No. 7 Syracuse traveled to Evanston, Illinois, four days later and proceeded to upset the No. 6 Wildcats 16-11 behind six goals from Emily Hawryschuk and five from Meaghan Tyrrell. Two weeks later, the Orange traveled 365 miles and promptly topped No. 9 Maryland, the defending champions, 10-5. Maryland originally canceled its game in Syracuse due to “weather and travel concerns.”

This year, 10 of 11 seniors from last season’s team are back. With five All-Americans returning, with the best scoring defense in the nation, with a clear “power-four” team, Syracuse has all the pieces to win the program’s first national title.

For the Orange, it has to be this year.

“They want to come back and they want to compete for a national championship and finish what they started last year,” Gait said Feb. 10.

The program has achieved perennial success since Gait took over in 2007.

The Orange have made the national title twice and the semifinals several times. Gait knows what it takes to win it all: He engineered backto -backto-back

championships as an SU player and was part of a coaching staff that won seven more with Maryland.

Frankly, he may never coach another Hawryschuk. She’s the second best lacrosse player in the nation — men’s or women’s — according to Inside Lacrosse’s 2021 rankings, and she’s on pace to rewrite SU’s record books by the end of this season. She sits sixth in program history with goals (205) and points (249). While SU’s 2021 regular season is condensed by three games, she’s on track to surpass the all-time goal record (250) by mid-April.

Sure, the No. 1 Class of 2021 recruit, Olivia Adamson, committed to SU and can dominate the draw and score in a bevy of ways. But there’s no one in women’s lacrosse who can both powerfully pinpoint corners from beyond eight yards and will her way through defenders to finish in close like Hawryschuk.

Hawryschuk was IL’s clutch player of the year, too. She scored four goals in the final 10 minutes in Syracuse’s near-miraculous comeback against Stony Brook, and she finished second in the NCAA in goals last year.

If Syracuse doesn’t win a national championship with Hawryschuk, it may be years before Gait gets another player of her caliber. She’s the program’s cornerstone and is the best since Kayla Treanor.

And unlike Treanor’s 2014 team — Syracuse’s best as of recent, though it fell short in the championship game to the Terps — this year’s is deeper and more experienced.

Both Defliese and Sarah Cooper were secondteam All-Americans in 2020 after anchoring the best scoring defense in the country. Syracuse’s entire starting backline returns for the third-consecutive season and has averaged under 8.7 goals allowed through its time together. Only two 2014 defenders, Natalie Glanell and Kasey Mock, had started prior to that season.

As for the offense, Treanor and Alyssa Murray dictated the pace in 2014, but the drop-off beyond the two Tewaaraton finalists was drastic — SU didn’t have any other All-Americans on offense. Hawryschuk has two All-American honorable mentions flanking her in juniors Megan Carney and Tyrrell.

In net, Asa Goldstock posted a .442% save percentage, and while her 8.19 goals against average is also indicative of the defense as a whole, she was an important key to the program’s fifth-best scoring defense ever.

This is the year for Syracuse women’s lacrosse because last year couldn’t be. Aside from an earlyseason ego check by Stony Brook, 2020 was Syracuse’s to lose as well. That Orange team put a target on the back of every team ranked higher and delivered.

COVID-19 robbed everyone from seeing what they could’ve done to No. 1 North Carolina, No. 2 Notre Dame or No. 3 Loyola.

The Tar Heels return as the nation’s best, and they added the 2020 No. 1 recruit Caitlyn Wurzburger. But getting highly-touted freshmen up to speed amid a pandemic and shortened schedule will be challenging.

The Atlantic Coast Conference will prove challenging for Syracuse. But it has all the pieces — and the experience — to live up to its aspirations, which Syracuse has already shown it can back up with unmatched talent and work ethic.

Now, the Orange just need to show desire for winning a national championship. And their best players long since have. tnolan@syr.edu

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SMALL BUT MIGHTY

How Bianca Chevarie has embraced her youth and size to become one of Syracuse’s next stars

By Anish Vasudevan asst. digital editor

S

earching through a sea of 100 kids, Don Chevarie couldn’t place his eyes on his daughter. He looked away for a brief moment after a game, and she was gone when he looked back.

Don and 12-year-old Bianca Chevarie had traveled from Ontario to Ohio State for her first youth lacrosse camp. One of the coaches had pulled Chevarie to another group — one with high schoolers and college kids — as the rest of the players made their way to the sideline.

She wasn’t even 5 feet tall, and she was playing among 19-year-olds.

“I felt so small,” Chevarie said. “It definitely was the kind of time I realized I could go farther than I thought instead of just playing lacrosse for fun and to stay athletic.”

Chevarie plays with her own age group now, but that feeling of being the smallest or youngest hasn’t escaped her. As a 5-foot-2 sophomore midfielder for Syracuse, she’s the third shortest player on the team. When injuries forced the Orange to delve deeper into their lineup last season, Chevarie’s height and age weren’t the focus: she was the only freshman who started multiple games. She returns in 2021 as an anchor in one of the most effective midfield units in the country.

Her size was first exposed while playing boy’s box lacrosse, where players can exit and enter the game without having to signal a referee. She had a bad habit of facing backward to look at defenders and was once knocked to the ground by an opponent coming from the other side of the bench.

“He hit me so hard my helmet had totally flipped backwards and I was laying on the ground,” Chevarie said. “I got up, twisted my helmet and chased the kid down.”

Her mother, Anita, would’ve made her quit

if she saw the hits her daughter was taking from larger opponents, Chevarie said. But after years of playing boy’s lacrosse and hockey, Chevarie developed an aggressiveness that she uses to her advantage — it makes up for the 6 or 7 inches that an opponent can have on her.

“I think a lot of people underestimated how strong I was,” Chevarie said. “I’ve learned to grow into my body in a way and trust myself.”

In high school, Chevarie practiced with the girl’s program four days a week and did ladder and flow drills twice with the boy’s program.

Her footwork and agility gave her the ability to outplay bigger opponents. She can easily outrun and dodge defenders several inches taller than her, and she had the “fastest feet” out of any of the athletes at the academy, said Clem D’Orazio, her lacrosse director at Everest Academy.

Chevarie studied some of the unorthodox tricks she witnessed in the men’s game — such as behind-the-back shots or around-the-world passes — during the two practices she attended every week. Hanna Burnett, who was Chevarie’s head coach her senior year, said that Chevarie separated herself from the rest of the girl’s lacrosse players her age through the skills and aggressiveness she learned from the boys.

“Women throwing behind-the-back shots is fairly new to our game, she’s been doing that for years,” Burnett said.

Performing past her height and age landed Chevarie a spot on the Canadian national team — of which head coach Gary Gait is the general manager — for the 2017 World Cup in England.

At 16, Chevarie said she went through a “shock period” playing with older players, some of whom were double her age.

Alongside “high-caliber” players at the World Cup, Chevarie learned to make an extra pass rather than shoot, she said. Chevarie finished with one goal and one assist in eight games.

“That was the first time when she probably wasn’t the best player on the field,” see chevarie page 12

lacrosse guide 2021 11

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from page 3

scanlan jersey emblazoned with “22,” twirling his stick while waiting to receive the pass that led to his first goal. Maybe this was the spot — the exact spot he wanted to be in as a ninth grader, but changed his mind three years later — and he had finally realized it.’

Richard Kettle didn’t want to keep explaining how to make lacrosse sticks. That wasn’t how he learned from his grandfather Francis, another traditional stickmaker. He learned by watching, by doing it himself, by trailing alongside to cut down hickory trees from the woods and splitting them into 13-foot logs. He wanted his grandson, Scanlan, to do the same.

Scanlan helped with stick-making so much growing up that those first two steps, and the others after them, have become ingrained in his mind. Split the logs into four pieces.

Drop them in boiling water. Bend and shape them into the stick. They worked together in Richard’s garage or basement, sometimes just sitting outside for hours when the time came for the shaving.

“He tries to teach them and show them, but it’s a craft, it’s a skill that artistic ability is involved as well,” Heather said.

Other times, they crafted smaller, narrower sticks for snow snakes, a traditional Native American game that Scanlan competes in every winter. He and Kettle spent Friday nights preparing their sticks with teammates, waxing, shaving and fine-tuning so they’d travel the fastest down the track the next two days — adapting to the snow’s conditions, whether it was rainy, wet or frozen.

When Saturday came, they piled into cars and traveled to different reservations around New York. Sometimes, these roadtrips came on little sleep, as late hours of the night extended into the early morning as Scanlan, Richard and the rest of their team continued to work the sticks. Scanlan, as a third-rater, throws on Saturdays, the starting point for him to eventually rise to second-and first-rater — meaning he’d throw on Sundays, the final day.

Charlie Scanlan, one of his uncles, made a track behind his house every year, allowing Scanlan and his cousins to come over and practice throwing, said Blade Garlow, Scanlan’s cousin. They grew up together in Irving, at that track and on the Gil Lay Memorial Arena floor, tagging along with their parents to Newtown Senior B leagues at night. They were the ball boys during the games and ran onto the field at halftime. Scanlan would be in net and would stop shots his older cousin Clay from page 5

march those guys who played during that time.”

March stayed with the Maroons in 2011 to help coach, something March’s dad knew he’d end up doing in some capacity. March always had a strong understanding of offenses and what weaknesses the defense presented, Pilat said.

March worked primarily with the offense and the man-up unit, providing input on personnel and playcalling. He didn’t travel much for recruiting but led campus visits for recruits and helped ease transitioning freshmen.

“I didn’t hold him back,” Pilat said. “We let him do whatever he wanted to do.”

After a year at Roanoke, March moved to D-III Dickinson. He spent two seasons there working under head coach Dave Webster. At the time, Webster wanted to shift to a higher speed of play. March was “a great hire” after having played in a high-octane system at Roanoke, he said.

“He was the kind of guy where, every day, I’d come to the office, and he was already in and drawing things up and asking, ‘What do you think about this, coach?’” Webster said.

March’s time coincided with Dickinson’s all-time leading point-getter, Brian Cannon. Like he’d do years later at Princeton with Michael Sowers, March helped Cannon develop his game around the goal-line extended, where the majority of Cannon’s goals came from.

Before working with March, Webster said he would have discouraged the tight-angle shot, as it’s traditionally a low-quality shot. But Webster eventually became a “big fan,” he said.

“It’s less about where your feet are and

fired at him from mid-field, bridging the time before they arranged pickup games themselves almost daily a few years later.

From the earliest points of his lacrosse career, Scanlan went with cousins to the Gil Lay or Cattaraugus Community Center, five minutes from home, and spent days acclimating to the sport. If all the pickup trucks were lined up in the parking lot one-by-one next to each other — Scanlan the red one, Clay the silver one, Tommy Scanlan the black one — that meant everyone was there.

They’d all pile their sticks in the middle of the arena floor and had one cousin toss them aside into two piles to make teams.

Scanlan began to shape his lacrosse style in those games. He modeled the way he finished shots and scooped up balls like a “vacuum” off Clay, who now plays in the National Lacrosse League. He watched how Zed Williams, currently in the Premiere Lacrosse League, consistently ripped off 100-mile-per-hour shots that were controlled.

If they didn’t have enough players to have a goalie, or if there was no net, they’d play “post,” where each shot off the iron counted the same as a normal goal. Other times, they strung water bottles to the corners or put a board across the net and left just the corners open.

And after hours of back and forth, sometimes stretching into the final hours of the night, the losing team bought Gatorade and chips from the Seneca One Stop on the way home.

“There’s a lot of talent and pride and everything right in our reservation,” Scanlan said.

“That’s the beautiful thing about the game of lacrosse, because it brings all of us together.”

Ten months after watching her son play at Syracuse for the first time, and then watching the final seven games of the season evaporate, Heather had her son home for the longest period of time since he left for IMG Academy. COVID-19 canceled everything related to lacrosse, except for the occasional pickup game on the reservation, so Scanlan purchased a boat, looked at adding a jet ski and picked up shifts pumping gas.

Heather joined Scanlan on his boat as he navigated the water, sitting behind him on the white seats while her son steered up front.

She couldn’t remember the last point Scanlan could fathom having enough free time to purchase a boat and make it worthwhile.

He didn’t have a graduation party after high school because he was traveling for the Minto Cup and other tournaments, and he didn’t come home for more than one weekend that summer before heading to Loyola.

“It’s been years that he’s been traveling around like that,” Heather said.

When they finished for the day, the boat returned to Heather’s yard, where it sat in between uses until Scanlan sold it to Heather’s cousin later that summer.

At Loyola, Scanlan never had time but always wished he did. He missed the first of two orientation weeks at Loyola with his freshman class in June 2018 because he played lacrosse in British Columbia and the Under Armour All-American game, creating a gap between him and his freshman teammates that only widened throughout the season. The first month of the fall semester, Scanlan spent his weekends a mile away at Johns Hopkins, hanging out with a former teammate and his friends from the All-American game.

“The first month, the guys kind of already had their own cliques and stuff, and I was kind of like an outlier,” Scanlan said.

For his first year of college, Scanlan was stuck at a place where he didn’t want to be.

Loyola’s location made it too far for most of his family and community to come visit, and it was too far away for visits home when homesickness resurfaced. He hinted to some at a possible transfer during the 2019 season, but he didn’t want to cause a distraction midway through a run that ultimately ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Heather didn’t realize her son was transferring until his name was already in the portal.

Scanlan’s homesickness had been something he dealt with since his initial season at IMG Academy, where he transferred after playing for four seasons on Silver Creek’s varsity team, first

March’s quick impact

more importantly where the head of your stick is,” Webster said. “While it looks like a low angle because of your feet kind of behind the goal, with the stickhead forward and momentum and whatnot, you know, it works if you practice it.”

Working at the D-III level taught March to “grind,” Haas said. There is no set recruiting calendar or athletic scholarships to offer.

There’s a larger pool of players to draw from, which makes finding the right recruit more difficult. March had a keen eye for talent, though, Haas said.

March stepped up to the D-I level in 2014 at Vermont. In three years at Vermont, March worked with many Canadian players coming from box lacrosse backgrounds. He ran a “pairs” offense, similar to what Princeton used at the time. The offense utilizes two-man

games around the field without much crossfield ball movement.

Prior to hiring March at Princeton in 2017, Tigers head coach Matt Madalon spoke with him about switching back to a traditional system, Madalon told The Daily Orange last year. Sims, who was a junior at Princeton when March entered, remembers March instituting more alley-dodges, which current Syracuse players also noted. In a system called “400,” Princeton placed three midfielders at the top of the offensive zone and a player in the middle and attacked from the high wings, Sims said.

Shooting became more of a focus for the team, both Sowers and Sims recalled. March stressed changing levels when shooting, like going from high to low, Sims said. Attacking the middle of the field became a priority so

as a goalie and then out in the field. The opportunity to play for the Ascenders emerged because of a relationship between his family and Mark Burnam, the head coach at the school.

In between practices, Scanlan’s homesickness forced him to make trips back to Irving outside of the traditional semester breaks.

The first time it happened, Thomas looked for options to bring Scanlan home when it got bad, trying to combine feasibility with price in case this happened more than once.

He settled on an Allegiant Air ticket that cost $39 each way, taking Scanlan directly from Florida to Niagara Falls — about an hourlong drive from Irving. Scanlan roomed with Clay his first year at IMG, but that didn’t quell the homesickness, either. “Just stick it out, everything’s good,” Thomas told him that first time, and on each of the other five trips across the two years at IMG. Even after he transferred to Syracuse two years later — as close to home as he could get while still playing for a top collegiate lacrosse program — the homesickness didn’t completely vanish. It resurfaced for the first time in the early days of November, when he missed his mother , his little sister, his family.

Scanlan made the drive home after a Friday lift for the weekend. And when he returned, perched at his same spot inside the Syracuse locker room, sandwiched in between Zach Lee and David Lipka, he was right where he needed to be. arcrane@syr.edu @CraneAndrew

players had the full cage to shoot at instead of tighter angles, Sowers said.

At the beginning of every January at Princeton, when captains ran practice sessions, March showed the players shooting drills that he pulled from from an Atlantic Coast Conference program in North Carolina. The players ran those drills for an hour to an hour-and-ahalf every day.

His offense succeeded. Princeton’s scoring offense remained in the top-10 nationally all three years March worked there.

In his first two years with the Tigers, they posted top-five shooting percentages in Division I lacrosse.

“Coach March was great at motivating players because he didn’t do too much,” Sims said. “He really let us play in practice and be creative and work things out for ourselves.”

Since moving to Syracuse before the 2020 season, March implemented many of the same principles that made him successful elsewhere. His offense flowed in No. 1 Syracuse’s five games last year.

Above all, March remains a “player’s coach,” Sims said. In practices at Princeton, March chirped the defense, joking that they couldn’t stop the offense. March always had the offense’s back, Sims said. And when his high school players watch March on the sidelines, Patrick said they notice how much fun his son is having. Patrick replies that it’s because March’s players are having so much fun on the field.

“He makes it easy to love playing lacrosse,” Sims said. “He makes it easy to become good by following the plan that he puts in place.

And yeah, I mean, I would play for him 10 times out of 10.” armajumd@syr.edu @aromajumder

12 lacrosse guide 2021

from page 6

simkins Allison called it “a gift in disguise” because of how it taught her daughter to outwork others.

That translated to the lacrosse field, where the sport was always an outlet for Simkins.

“I fell behind (in school),” Simkins said.

“But then I started playing all different sports, and it helped me learn different skills, especially how to work hard and how to get what you want.”

After visiting Syracuse on a recruiting visit her junior year, Simkins knew she wanted to win a national championship with the Orange, she said. Syracuse has had three tournament berths in her career — first-round losses in 2017 and 2018 and a quarterfinals loss in 2019.

This year, Simkins returns for her fifth season for the Orange, in search of a national championship title.

“She’s just so driven to finish out and win a national championship,” Allison said. “That’s from page 10

chevarie D’Orazio said.

Chevarie didn’t start the first couple games, but the midfielder was put in at attack for the majority of the tournament. Burnett said they made the position switch because her speed and energy could help match that of the young, opposing United States team.

Canada lost 10-5 to the U.S. team in the gold medal game, but Chevarie’s play earned her a spot on the U-19 World championship team, which she captained in 2019. Her experience at attack from the England World Cup resurfaced three years later at Syracuse, when Morgan Alexander suffered a season-ending leg injury in spring of 2020. Chevarie started in four games at left attack before the season was canceled due to the pandemic.

Similar to her experience in 2017 with the Canadian team, Chevarie said she was more passive in her first few starts last season, passing to

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what she wants.”

Five years after contemplating quitting lacrosse, Simkins dislocated her shoulder after falling while defending during her junior year. Back when she was a junior in high school, she might’ve walked off the field and never returned to the sport.

But that day in spring 2019, she popped her shoulder back into place. Simkins went back to the locker room and returned to the field 15 minutes after the injury. She didn’t have an official diagnosis yet, but she still played the remainder of the game.

She got a shoulder brace later that season and followed a strict recovery and physical therapy regime — but she didn’t miss a start. She may still need surgery, but Simkins doesn’t want to miss the season. Instead, she’ll wait until after she graduates.

“I have to do everything to make sure that I can play, and that’s my biggest motivator for getting on the field,” Simkins said. “Doing those things to make sure that I can play the best that I can for my team.” veteran players instead of shooting herself.

Eventually, though, Chevarie gained confidence in her shot and finished with four goals and four assists in eight games played. But with Alexander returning this season, Gait expects Chevarie to return to midfield.

“I know that she is very comfortable with the defensive end, as well as the offensive end,” Gait said. “I think we can utilize her two-way abilities, and I’m sure she’ll (continue to) make a nice impact on our program.”

Chevarie may not see the field as much as veteran midfielders Sam Swart and Cara Quimby, but Burnett said that the opportunity for Chevarie to play for the Orange is enough itself. The fact that Chevarie’s always been undersized isn’t stopping her from reaching her end goal — to be in the same category as some of the elite players on Syracuse’s starstudded roster, Burnett said.

“She knows that she wants to be amongst some of those names one day,” Burnett said. asvasude@syr.edu @anish_vasu

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from page 7

dearth His high school coach at Ridgefield, Roy Colsey, had also played at the collegiate level like Dearth’s childhood idols. Colsey was a four-time All-American with the Orange and won national titles in 1993 and 1995. Under the former SU midfielder, Dearth compiled 125 points in just over 50 varsity games. He utilized the weight room during his junior year of high school, and the current 6-foot-3, 214-pound frame that earned him the title of IL’s No. 63 recruit in the 2016 class began to mold.

“He was the alpha male of his midfield group,” Carcaterra said. “He was a big, strong, right-handed, alley-dodging middie who could overpower players with his strength from page 4

tyrrell Bertolone pictured her playing at Syracuse.

As a left-handed attack, Tyrrell excelled at dodging to the left, and he compared her to some of Syracuse’s best all-time players.

He said they used to study “all the great Syracuse lefties” such as Michelle Tumolo and Riley Donahue, who are fourth and ninth on Syracuse’s all-time career points list, respectively.

As a freshman, Tyrrell showed a glimpse of that left-handed talent. In her first collegiate game against UConn, Tyrrell was positioned next to the goal and received a pass from Morgan Alexander. She immediately turned around, dodged a defender and took a clean shot for her first career goal.

Four minutes later, she was in the same position. From behind the cage, she cut to the front, faking out a defender before whizzing the ball just past the goaltender.

Both times, she kept her head up on the dodge until locking eyes with her target and scoring.

After recording five points in her debut, she had five hat tricks in 21 games and 20

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and athleticism.”

The only thing Dearth couldn’t do at Ridgefield was will his team to a conference championship. Rival Darien (Conn.) High School finished three of Dearth’s four seasons in USA Today’s Super 25, winning three-consecutive FCIAC and state finals. The team that topped Dearth’s 6-5 in the 2015 Class L state title boasted 17 Division-I players. Still, Dearth credits that time with giving him both a “chip” and the “resilience” to weather the college level’s adversity.

In fall of 2016, he brought that mentality to Syracuse. While teammates were more keen on classmate Jamie Trimboli’s success at Victor (New York) High School, Dearth’s stature alone commanded the instant respect of his peers in the No. 12 recruiting class of 2016.

“I looked to my left and there was this 6-foot-4 jacked dude standing there, and I think I was 140 pounds,” Porter said.

“He’s just a beast athlete.”

Four years later, with Dearth in his new position and Porter starting in cage for the second straight season, 2020 had the makings of yielding the title both players sought before the season got cut short. Dearth said it felt like SU “wasn’t going to lose a game any time soon,” either.

The culmination of March 2020 made returning for February a “no-brainer,” for Dearth. The redshirt senior is a captain yet again, though Dearth characteristically said there should be an “asterisk” next to that because of the pandemic, and he gives all the credit to his teammates.

But three years ago, it was Dearth’s deci-

sion to trade an offensive ego for the betterment of the program. In the process, Desko said Dearth’s become a “double threat.”

There’s no reason Dearth can’t continue following his brother to the professional level, Carcaterra said.

During that sophomore season, before the shift, Dearth felt like he was letting the team down. In the past three years, Dearth’s discovered that the defensive side of the ball suits him better. As a kid, playing soccer and basketball, defense was more enjoyable, too. At Syracuse now, his new role has put the Orange in the best position possible.

“It wasn’t really a hard decision for me,” Dearth said. “I just came here to win, so I’m more than happy to do whatever that requires.” tnolan@syr.edu

starts, including a four-goal game against Cornell. She was second on the team in goals and points, behind only Hawryschuk.

“Right off the bat, she was just the greatest energy ever,” former Syracuse teammate Natalie Wallon said. “I remember immediately being impressed with her when she came in as a freshman. She had such an immediate impact on our team that season.”

After being a top-three goal scorer for the Orange in her first two seasons, Tyrrell’s learned to make every game count after the season was cut short three hours before faceoff in Virginia on March 12.

In that February game against Northwestern, Tyrrell wrapped around from behind the goal, dodging a Wildcat defender to position herself straight on. Madison Doucette lunged to her left as Tyrrell shot to her right. When the ball hit the net, Vanessa Costantino jumped into her arms as the rest of the team swarmed, celebrating Tyrrell’s fifth goal of the game to give Syracuse a two-goal lead.

And as she fired that shot, her stance was the same as always — with her head up. aekaylor@syr.edu @cincinnallie

lacrosse guide 2021

Beat writers make 2021 lacrosse season predictions MEN’S LACROSSE Roshan Fernandez

Their time?

Record: 11-1 (5-1 ACC) MVP: Trimboli-Dordevic-Curry midfield X-Factor: Drake Porter No. 1 Syracuse had the best midfield line in the country last season. Jamie Trimboli, Tucker Dordevic and Brendan Curry combined for 51 of SU’s 126 points through five games last season. Their dominance on the attacking end of the field opens up space behind for Syracuse’s second midfield line, too. Chase Scanlan scored seven on his debut as Syracuse’s new No. 22, Drake Porter led the Atlantic Coast Conference in save percentage, and the defense was doing enough to keep the Orange afloat.

In theory, Syracuse has (almost) all the pieces. The five pre-coronavirus games it played in 2020 didn’t provide a true test — SU played only one ranked opponent — but Syracuse was ranked No. 1 for the first time since 2017. The Orange will have to replace Nick Mellen, who left for Major League Lacrosse, but Syracuse is more than capable of filling his role.

Allie Kaylor

In league with the Devils Record: 10-2 (4-2 ACC) MVP: Chase Scanlan X-Factor: Owen Hiltz It’s true that Syracuse finished last season undefeated and ranked No. 1. It’s also true that the entire starting attack and midfield are returning. But that doesn’t change the fact that the rest of the ACC got better. Michael Sowers, the best player in college lacrosse, transferred from Princeton to Duke. The Blue Devils also hail top recruit Brennan O’Neill. Virginia and Notre Dame also picked up a handful of Ivy League refugees — Syracuse plays both teams twice. The Orange will win out their nonconference schedule, with all home games and No. 12 Army as the only ranked team of the six opponents. They’ll drop a couple of ACC games — most likely on the road to No. 1 Duke, No. 3

Virginia or No. 7 Notre Dame — but still finish near the top of a conference with all five teams ranked in the preseason top 10.

If Syracuse wants to take down Duke, Scanlan is gonna be the guy to do it. The No. 22 was Syracuse’s best offensive player last season. He slightly underperformed expectations in his five games, but after having the chance to settle in just three hours from home, who knows what he’ll be able to do in a full season. No. 2 recruit Owen Hiltz also has the chance to make a huge impact. John Desko named him a newcomer to look out for.

Paul Carcaterra called him SU’s most skilled attack recruit since Mikey Powell. If Scanlan and Hiltz can live up to their expectations, Syracuse will go far.

Arabdho Majumder

Keep on keepin’ on Record: 10-2 (4-2 ACC) MVP: Jamie Trimboli X-Factor: Grant Murphy In a season of uncertainty, Syracuse’s biggest strength in relation to a conference that got stronger is its continuity. Duke added college lacrosse’s best player, Sowers, and top incoming freshman, O’Neill. In their first two games, the Blue Devils began slowly on offense as they worked to incorporate the new pieces. They scored three first quarter goals combined during those games. The Orange hope to avoid a similar situation opening play against No. 12 Army on Feb. 21 and ACC-foe No. 3 Virginia the weekend after. They will have practiced less than a month this spring going into that game. They don’t have much time to adjust, but they don’t need it, returning all six offensive starters.

SU’s biggest question marks come at the back. Shutdown close defender Mellen left for Major League Lacrosse. Longstick midfielder Jared Fernandez chose a transfer to Johns Hopkins. Brett Kennedy likely becomes the Orange’s new top cover defender and showed in last year’s shortened season that he’s more than capable of filling that role. Nick DiPietro started and looked comfortable in all five games in 2020. Can Grant Murphy or one of

Syracuse’s summer transfers, such as Nick Hapney or Mitch Wykoff, plant themselves as a reliable third defender?

If so, Syracuse may be looking at the trip to the final four it missed out on last year.

WOMEN’S LACROSSE Gaurav Shetty

The Last Dance Record: 11-3 (7-3 ACC) MVP: Emily Hawryschuk X-Factor: Team Defense Last season was supposed to be Syracuse’s best chance in a few years to win a national championship. The Orange were ranked No. 2 in the preseason with four preseason All-Americans, including Emily Hawryschuk coming off a 75-goal season. Apart from a one-goal loss to then-No. 12 Stony Brook, Syracuse was gaining momentum week by week, with big wins over higher ranked opponents like Northwestern and Maryland. While they never had a chance to play conference opponents, Syracuse finished with the best scoring defense, and goalie Asa Goldstock finished with the best goals-against average.

With one of the best attacks in the country in Hawryschuk, Syracuse will be putting up points in bunches. The question is can this defense continue it’s strong play into the 2021 season, where there may be little to no fans in the Dome. On paper, this Syracuse team has what it takes to win its first national championship in what would be a culmination of years of hard work for its 10 returning seniors.

Skyler Rivera

Force to be reckoned with Record: 11-3 (8-2 ACC) MVP: Emily Hawryschuk X-Factor: COVID-19 Ten of last year’s seniors are returning to the field this season under the NCAA’s extra year of eligibility. With that, Syracuse is going to be a damn good team. Hawryschuk returns for a fifth season with the Orange after she finished last season with 27 goals

in 5 games played. As it has been for the past four years, Hawryschuk will be essential in Syracuse’s road to the tournament. Two years ago, Syracuse was crushed by Northwestern in the NCAA quarterfinals, and last season, the Orange beat the Wildcats in Evanston. (Talk about a resume booster.)

Syracuse returns to the field with a fire that was never extinguished by COVID-19, so expect to see a lot of victories and a clear path back to the NCAA tournament.

In the world we live in now, you never know what’s going to happen in the future. But, if one thing is certain, this Syracuse team is stacked and has a clear line for the NCAA tournament.

If players can stay healthy, expect to see Syracuse ending the season with a trophy in hand.

Anish Vasudevan

This a number one champion sound Record: 12-2 (8-2 ACC) MVP: Meaghan Tyrrell X-Factor: Injuries The Orange were on a hot streak last year, only losing one game before the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, because of limited practices in the offseason for teams in this COVID-19 riddled season, injuries have been the biggest test.

Last season, one of the biggest losses for Syracuse was Morgan Alexander; however, they were able to show that they could fill positions by putting freshman Bianca Chevarie at the attack position.

If veterans like Alexander, Hawryschuk and Meaghan Tyrrell — some of the pinnacles of Syracuse’s offense — can stay healthy, there’s no reason why they can’t dominate the regular season and create momentum heading into the postseason.

In 2015, Syracuse won an ACC title, just two years after joining the conference.

However, 10 players didn’t use their extra eligibility heading into this season to win just an ACC title, this year it’s about the big game. The Orange won’t relent until the NCAA championship comes home. sports@dailyorange.com

lacrosse guide 2021 15

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TIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRES

4 Quality Tires BIG TIRE

and Services VISIT US AT 230 Old Bridge Street E. Syracuse, NY 13057 (315) 432-4444

149 Midler Park Drive Syracuse, NY 13206 (315) 437-0329

OR CHECK US OUT AT WWW.BIG4TIRE.COM TIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRESTIRES

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