NCAA Rewind: Yet Another Consistently Strong Season by Syracuse

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2025 — look out for our NCAA Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings later this summer — our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking a last look at the 2024 college lacrosse season.

To do that, we’re taking a journey through 30 of the top teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse to see what went right, what went wrong and how we should feel about the season.

SYRACUSE

USA Lacrosse preseason/final ranking: No. 5/No. 3
2024 record: 16-6 (8-1 ACC)

What went right: Syracuse’s 2024 success was almost quiet. There was significant ranking instability, like Notre Dame upsetting Northwestern, a team Syracuse lost to in game one, in the second weekend, and teams grabbing the big upsets saw the significant rankings climb and more headlines. 

It didn’t help that Syracuse’s offense looked lackluster and frustrated early on as it attempted to find its identity post-Meg Show (Meaghan Tyrrell and Meg Carney). That heavily contributed to overtime losses to Maryland and Stony Brook. But after that loss to SBU on March 5, the Orange rattled off nine straight, proving to be a model of consistency and winning its first-ever outright regular-season ACC title. 

The Meg Show turned into the Emma Show, with Emma Tyrrell (70 G, 22 A) and Emma Ward (44 G, 37 A) finishing in the top three in scoring. With Kate Mashewske (234 DC) back on the circle, Olivia Adamson could focus on offense, tallying 58 goals and 25 assists to join Emma Tyrrell in the 100-point club. 

What went wrong: Speaking of consistency: The Orange consistently (chronically?) haven’t been able to figure out how to beat Boston College since 2021 when the two teams met in the national championship game (now-head coach Kayla Treanor was wearing an Eagles trucker hat for that one as BC’s associate head coach). 

This year, the Eagles once again dashed Syracuse’s hopes of an undefeated ACC regular season with an 11-10 overtime win on April 18. The two teams squared off again in the conference tournament final, a game that the Orange led 5-1 and lost 15-8. And BC ended the Orange’s season in the final four for the second consecutive year — a 10-7 Eagles win. 

Season highlight: It’s not so much of a moment but a compilation of them for this year’s Orange. Despite losing to Boston College on the final day of the regular season, the Orange took the ACC title with wins over the likes of Notre Dame (16-14), North Carolina (20-5) and Virginia (15-14). 

It’s hard to believe a program like Syracuse had never won the ACC regular season outright, but that monkey is off the Orange’s back heading into 2025. The returners undoubtedly want to ditch a few others next year.

Verdict: Good and up to Syracuse’s standards — and a season most programs would be proud to put together. The Orange should feel the same. However, the lack of a national championship and woes against Boston College likely don’t sit well with the Salt City bunch.