Syracuse men’s lacrosse: Orange looking to continue May run of redemption, validation this weekend

This year’s NCAA run has been crazy, but it’s also represented a lot more than that for a program looking to reclaim former glory.

For lacrosse fans, there is no better time of year than May.

It’s the time when 18 teams and their fanbases have the chance to fight through the chaos of the NCAA Tournament to reach the ultimate goal. It’s the time when fighting to keep your season alive can breed spectacular on-field results like last weekend’s quarterfinal games.

For the Syracuse Orange and their fans, this May has meant the return to a place they used to think of as their annual Memorial Day weekend celebration. After 12 years away, it’s been a wonderful reminder of how much fun spring lacrosse can be when the Orange keep hanging around until the final weekend.

An epic comeback and overtime winner against Harvard and an all-time quarterfinal win against Princeton have left Orange nation in a state of euphoria, but its meant even more than that to the people who made it happen.

In year four of the Gary Gait era, ‘Cuse has improved their final standing each and every season. They’ve gone from their worst record ever, to a winning record, to the NCAA Quarterfinals, and now to the Final Four.

But the past few weeks, specifically, have provided a sense of validation for Gait and his team; validation that they are making real strides to getting the Orange back to being, well, ‘back’ as everyone likes to say.

We’ve seen steady progress over the course of the last four years, which has included more and more impressive wins over time. This year, it’s felt like there’s been a handful of times when we’ve thought we just watched the best win of Gait’s tenure.

But the inconsistencies of a program on the rebuild made some of those wins feel, at times, like a one-step-forward, one-step-back situation.

There is no better example of that than this past April, when SU began the month by picking up what most people agreed was Gait’s best win as men’s head coach: a comprehensive, 14-9 win over Notre Dame that snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Irish. In that moment, it felt like ‘Cuse was turning a significant corner as they finally exercised their demons against their biggest recent boogeyman.

That feeling lasted about a week, and then came the rest of April, where the Orange dropped three straight games while looking inexplicably listless at times. It got so bad that there was a not-insignificant chance they were playing themselves out of the NCAA Tournament all together.

And then May came, and with it, the tide turning with its strongest momentum yet. ‘Cuse won the ACC Tournament title for the first time since 2016, played their way to the 6-seed in the tourney, and won two of their most exhilarating games in years on their way back to their first Final Four since 2013.

In three weeks time, SU went from the very edge of the tournament bubble to the tournament’s final weekend. Gary Gait went from shouts for his job to the man who led the Orange back to the Final Four. Joey Spallina silenced his critics and became a No. 22 who delivered in a big moment. The current crop of talent went from underachieving to the place we thought they’d be all along.

In sports, perception of you can change just that fast, as long as you execute when it matters most. This group has done that, and validated their progress as a program in the process.

One of the main ways they’ve been able to do that is through redemption.

They got their redemption against Notre Dame this year, twice, after not defeating the Irish for seven years and generally getting embarrassed by them in the interval. But not this year, and that April ND win was the first real sign that this year’s team might be different. Might be tougher. Might be more willing and able to not just win a fight, but to take the fight to their opponents.

They got their redemption again in the ACC Tournament, when they got revenge for their regular season loss by beating Duke in the final and simultaneously picking up their first postseason title since 2016.

For a while there, it looked as though the Harvard game was going to follow the exact same script as the first meeting, but they eventually secured their redemption against the Crimson in the NCAA first round with their comeback for the ages.

This team has been fueled by redemption, by doubt, by a desire to prove themselves on the biggest stages. Joey Spallina was not so subtle in saying as much in his on-field, TV interview after the Princeton game.

On Saturday, they’ll get another chance to keep the redemption tour going when they come up against a Maryland team that shut them down in an 11-7 regular season meeting in College Park back in February.

With the two wins this year over Notre Dame, Maryland becomes the new boogeyman for SU, as they’ve beaten the Orange seven straight times dating back to a very unfortunate meeting between the two on the very field they’ll take this weekend in the 2011 NCAA quarterfinals.

In truth, the real boogeyman may be John Tillman, the Terps head man who has never lost to SU in his Maryland career. He’s 7-0 in his complete domination of John Desko, Gary Gait and the Orange.

What he represents is the stuff of nightmares, but this ‘Cuse team has already proven that they’re different, especially when it comes to playing the revenge game. How different remains to be seen, but regardless, this tour has been one heck of a ride.