ACC Play On Tap for #8 Syracuse

No. 8 SYRACUSE (7-2, 0-0 ACC) at rv Virginia (5-4, 0-0 ACC)
Game Details	Saturday, March 29, 2025 \| Syracuse, N.Y. \| 1 ET
Game Coverage	Live Coverage: Stats Stream: ACC Network Extra Listen: Cuse.com \| ESPN Radio Syracuse \| Learfield IMG College \| Cuse App \| Varsity App \| TuneIn \| WAER Twitter: @CuseMLAX Instagram: @CuseMLAX Facebook: CuseMLAX
Syracuse Links	News \| Roster \| Schedule \| Game Notes
Virginia Links	News \| Roster \| Schedule \| Game Notes

THE GAME
- ACC play is here for the No. 8 Orange as Syracuse heads down south for its league opener at University of Virginia. Syracuse men's lacrosse begins its 12th season as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
- The Orange roll into Charlottesville with a 7-2 overall record and riding a four-game winning streak, seeking their second win away from the Dome this season. Syracuse won its pair of in-state games last week, topping Manhattan 16-2 and besting No. 20 Colgate 16-12 in a long-standing rivalry game.
- The Cavaliers are 5-4 this year, also picking up a pair of wins over UAlbany (12-9) and Utah (14-9) last week at Klöckner Stadium.
- Syracuse is 4-1 against opponents these teams have in common, picking up wins over No. 17 Towson, No. 20 Colgate, No. 7 Johns Hopkins, and Utah. Virginia is 3-2 with victories against Towson, Colgate and Utah. The Cavaliers dropped the Doyle Smith Cup against No. 7 Hopkins while both teams lost against Maryland.
- This weekend's game is set for a 1 p.m. start at Klöckner Stadium on ACC Network Extra. Corey Spector '21 has play-by-play duties with Doug Tarring handling analysis.
- Tim Leonard '21 (play-by-play) and Kyle Fetterly '09 (analyst) take to the airwaves on Syracuse Sports Network and ESPN Radio Syracuse (97.7) locally, Cuse.com, The Varsity App, and TuneIn App, as well as Syracuse University student-radio station WAER.

THE VIRGINIA SERIES
- Two blue bloods, one colorway.
- Syracuse and Virginia meet for the 43rd time on Saturday and the series is about as even as it gets. Both teams have won this match up 21 times while the Orange hold a one-goal advantage all-time, entering the weekend with 555 goals against the Cavaliers since 1938.
- Even the last 10 meetings have been evenly split at 5-5.
- Syracuse holds a two-game advantage in ACC play with a 7-5 record against the Cavaliers in conference games.
- Since the turn of the century, there have been 14 one-goal games between Syracuse and Virginia, eight have which have gone the way of the Orange.
- To no one's surprise, even Syracuse's road record against Virginia is evenly split at 9-9 since grabbing a 13-4 win at the first meeting in Charlottesville on April 14, 1938.
- Syracuse and Virginia have never met on March 29.

A WIN ON SATURDAY WOULD...
- Improve Syracuse to 2-1 on the road this year, picking up back-to-back road wins at Utah and at Virginia.
- Put Syracuse ahead 22-21 in the all-time series against Virginia dating back to 1938.
- Be a second-straight season Syracuse opens ACC play with a win after besting Duke 10-4 last spring.
- Be the fifth-straight win for Syracuse, the longest run of victories for the Orange since winning five straight in the middle of the 2024 season.
- See the Orange win their fourth game against an opponent mentioned in the top 20 six such games so far this year.
- Be the 956th win in program history, second-most among Division I programs.

TWO HUNDRED²
- The Spirit of Lacrosse may have been present at the Dome for the Syracuse and Colgate game.
- Redshirt senior Owen Hiltz and junior Joey Spallina, both attackmen, secured their 200th career points on the exact same play, a Spallina-to-Hiltz feed up top for a 2-1 Syracuse lead early in the first quarter.
- Hiltz entered the game with 198 points while Spallina sat at 199. The former scored the game's first goal just five seconds in to bring his total to 199, setting up a unique moment for a crowd of 5,126.
- Hiltz and Spallina are the 18th and 19th players in Syracuse's storied program history to hit the 200 point mark and the first since Dylan Donahue did it in 2016.
- Six have now hit the mark in 45 games or less: Tim Nelson (34), Joey Spallina (42), Tim O'Hara (42), Casey Powell (43), Tom Marechek (43), and
Mike Powell (45).
- Hiltz will made an appearance in his 54th time against Colgate and is tied with Paul Gait for the 12th-fastest to 200 points.

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
- The NCAA released its updated Rankings Percentage Index (RPI) on March 26.
- Syracuse checks in with the ninth-best RPI in Division I.
- The Orange have faced or will face six of the eight teams ahead of them on the RPI: No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 North Carolina, No. 5 Duke, No. 6 Cornell, No. 7 Notre Dame, and No. 8 Harvard.
- Per the NCAA, Syracuse has the fourth-strongest schedule in Division I this year as of Monday, with all opponents amassing a 69-36 record, a 65.7 winning percentage.
- The Orange also have the fourth-toughest future schedule as the remaining opponents are a combined 30-10, a .750 winning percentage. That is the second-toughest future opposition percentage across the ACC.
- The entire ACC has a top-10 toughest schedule remaining rating, with the lowest, Notre Dame, at 10th with a .689 percentage.

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Players Mentioned

Owen Hiltz

Joey Spallina

Syracuse University Athletics