Syracuse Lacrosse: Ben Williams Watch 2015

First off, according to the man himself, Ben Williams is good to go and will be ready to face the St. John's Red Storm. So that is good news.

Ben Williams currently sits at 62-86 with a .721 faceoff win percentage. There are at least nine games remaining on the schedule (8 regular season games + either the ACC showcase game or an ACC semifinals game). He is averaging 15.5 wins per game, if that trend continues Williams will finish the season with 201 faceoff wins in the season. Nationally, Williams sits second in division I behind Christopher May of Ohio State who sports a .750 winning percentage. Although OSU has played six games, its toughest opponent has been Marquette, and only one of its opponents has a player in the top 35 of faceoff winning percentages in D1. So needless to say, the Buckeyes haven't been playing the same kind of competition.

On the Syracuse all-time wins list for a season Chris Bickel sits at eighth with 201 wins in the 2003 season (16 games played). The category leader is Bill Dirrigl at 274 in the 1988 season. Since Bickel did it in 2003 and 2002, only Danny Brennan has had over 200 wins in a season for Syracuse (2008, 18 games played). In addition, no sophomore has ever had more than 139 faceoff wins in a season.

In terms of faceoff winning percentage, Chris Cercy has the best all-time percentage for a season of any Syracuse Orange faceoff guy when he took .711 percent of all faceoffs in 2000. Keep in mind that the SU season f/o percentage requires a minimum of 100 attempts. Williams currently has 86, so he should probably surpass that minimum this weekend assuming he plays.

On a national level, the record for faceoff percentage in a season is .776 by Mark Goers of Towson in 1994. Only seven players have ever had a better faceoff winning percentage in a season than Williams currently does.

Don't worry, we are not done yet because Williams is also on pace to have a big year in another category. Williams has 39 groundballs in 2015, placing him tied for third nationally in groundballs per game. If we project out his totals for the season based on at least nine more games to be played he would finish with 126 GBs. It's not a crazy number considering he had 95 last season at Holy Cross. In Syracuse history, since 1988 when the statistic began to be calculated, only three players have ever had more than 100 groundballs in a season, the last player to do it was Sam Basset in 2000 with 164. 126 would put Williams tied for second on the all-time list for GBs in a season. The record for groundballs in a season by a sophomore is held by Gary Gait when he grabbed 85 in 1988. In terms of GBs in a game, Williams' 13 against Army is tied for the ninth most by a Syracuse player in a game.

Assuming that Williams stays healthy, it looks like this could be a historic year at the faceoff X for the SU sophomore.

Below are the full records previously mentioned. I used italics to show where Williams would place if the season ended today.

*GB statistics kept since 1988.