Syracuse earns No. 5 seed in NCAA Tournament, will face Fairfield in 1st round
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In head coach Kayla Treanor’s first season, Syracuse never fell from Inside Lacrosse’s top-five ranking. While the Orange hovered around the No. 3 and 4 spots for most of the year, they earned the No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
SU (13-5, 6-2 Atlantic Coast) will take on Fairfield (13-6, 5-3 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) in the first round on May 13 in its ninth straight NCAA Tournament appearance. SU appeared in its third championship game in program history last season, but lost to Boston College 16-10.
Syraucse will play its first round matchup in Princeton, New Jersey. The Orange won’t be able to play in the Dome due to graduation so the Tigers will host the first and second rounds. Michael Scerbo, an associate athletic director at Duquesne and a member of the selection committee, said if SU was able to host, Fairfield would have traveled to Syracuse instead.
Similar to last season, many of Syracuse’s key contributors have faced injuries. Emma Ward, 2021 standout freshman, announced that she would be out for the entire season before it even started. All-ACC midfielder Sierra Cockerille suffered a non-contact injury during a March game against Northwestern and has been out since. In the second week of April, a lower body injury downgraded Emma Tyrrell, the Orange’s third-best scorer, from day-to-day to out for the year. Megan Carney has also been in and out of the lineup with lower body problems.
Even with those losses, Syracuse’s best attackers have performed at a high level. Meaghan Tyrrell led the team in points last year and has, once again, been SU’s best attacker. Her 99 points are fifth-best in the country, and she has the highest shooting percentage in the nation among players with at least 100 shots. As a result, Meaghan is one of just 25 nominees for the Tewaaraton award.
Not too far behind Meaghan is Emily Hawryschuk, who notched 60 goals and 83 points. After returning from an ACL tear in 2021, Hawryschuk has had eight games with at least four goals. This included a seven-goal performance against Cornell, when Hawryschuk gathered a career-high 11 points, the most points from a SU player since Treanor, SU’s current head coach, scored 11 as a player in 2014.
SU has won seven games against ranked opponents, including three against top 10 teams. The Orange won their first four games, beating then-No. 4 Stony Brook and then-No. 17 Notre Dame. But in March, Syracuse lost in overtime to then-No. 6 Northwestern, and then trailed by multiple goals for the first time in 2022 against then-No. 13 Florida. Following the loss to the Gators, SU only dropped regular season games versus top-3 teams — No. 1 North Carolina and No. 3 Boston College.
However, the Orange were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, stopping only one shot on goal against Virginia in the 18-14 loss.