No. 10 Syracuse sneaks past No. 18 Colgate in a chippy CNY battle

In lacrosse, the midfield line is more important to its game than it is in any other sport. Sure in basketball you may have an eight second violation for team can’t get the ball from one side of the timeline to the other, but it doesn’t happen nearly as much as it does in lacrosse. When you’re on the field each team has 30 seconds to get the ball from one side of midfield over to the other or else it caused turnover. Now entering today, 18th ranked Colgate Men’s lacrosse did that better than just about anyone with its stout 10 man ride defense, but 10 ranked Syracuse was ready for it The Orange converted nearly every clearing opportunity that it had today in route to a 16 to 12 win over the Raiders. Now while the ride was tough, Syracuse came prepared thanks to a week and a half of preparation from head coach, Gary Gait and his crew. 

“I thought you know like I said we had a long spring break and we got to do some 10 man before we prepared for Manhattan so we had time. I thought we did a great job. I think two or three of the clearers were just shots that they intercepted or they won the race to them to run it out so we handled the pressure pretty well. I thought and you know probably better than most teams to play them.”

While the ranked win over Colgate marked the second to last nonconference game of the season for Syracuse, that doesn’t mean the road gets any easier. Next up for SU was a battle against Virginia from Charlottesville next Saturday. Now the last time that the Orange and the Cavaliers played, it was right here at the Dome when Syracuse won its regular season finale 18-17 in a thriller of a game.  Gametime is set for 1:00.