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Women's Lacrosse Makes it Six Final Four Trips for Syracuse Athletics This Year

It's the pickle juice.

By Nathan Dickinson
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

To say Syracuse Orange Athletics had a good year this year might be a bit of an understatement (minus that whole Mark Coyle thing). Yeah, the basketball team made the Final Four, but everyone knows that. Just how good was Syracuse sports this year? About this good:

Cross country doesn't really have a Final Four, but they won the national championship so I'd say that counts.

But it's not just that these sports are making the Final Four, it's more than that. In more sport than one, the Orange made strides further than it had in program history. Before this year, the women's basketball team had never made a Sweet Sixteen, and then all of a sudden it went all the way to the National Championship Game before losing to UConn. They weren't the only trailblazers on the Hill this year.

Field hockey won the national title; that was a first, and also the first time a Syracuse women's team had won a national championship. Ever.

Men's cross country won the national title; that was the first since 1951.

Men's soccer made the Final Four; that was a first, and the first time the Orange had made it past the round of 16.

If the women's lacrosse team goes the distance, that would be a first.

Field hockey and men's cross country championships were more than just the first in program history, too. It marked the first time an SU team that wasn't men's lacrosse or men's basketball won it all since men's crew in 1978. Before that, it was the football team's 1959 championship. So yeah, it's been a while.

So who gets credit for all of this success? DOCTOR Gross? Mark Coyle? I don't know and I don't care. You could give the credit to Pete Sala for all I care. It means more sports for Orange fans to be proud of. And if you want to use these six Final Four to laugh at programs with zero this academic year (like Georgetown), that's fine too.

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