Syracuse men’s lacrosse’s season ends with 18-11 loss to Notre Dame

Well, at least it’s all over.

On Sunday afternoon on Senior Day in the Dome, the 2022 Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse season finally came to a close with an 18-11 loss to Notre Dame.

The game itself went pretty much like you would have expected. The Orange struggled to crack Notre Dame’s defense, leading to a lot of weak looks against Liam Entenmann, who made what felt like a thousand saves in this one (he actually made 22). The SU man-up unit was completely incompetent in going 0-for-5, and the Orange defense couldn’t stay with Pat Kavanagh (10 points, again) and the Irish offense.

The Orange found hard as they did through the struggle all season long (outside of the first ND game), but the talent disparity between these two was just too much to overcome.

There was one nice moment in this game, or two rather, in the fourth quarter when senior Brendan Curry scored two goals to tie and then pass his father, Todd, on the all-time Syracuse goals list. The cameras showed Todd getting emotional in the stands after his son tied him on the list, and then when Brendan scored again to pass him, he immediately spun around and pointed up to his dad in the stands, who was pointing right back. It was a tremendous moment for father and son. And for Brendan to do it in his last ever game in a Syracuse uniform - very cool.

While Senior Day was full of many emotional moments for this Syracuse program, the main takeaway from this season for Orange fans will be the hope that we’ve just wrapped up the rock-bottom moment for this program as the Gary Gait era moves forward.

This was, after all, a historically bad season for Syracuse. They finished with an overall record of 4-10, the most losses in one season in the 107-year history of the program. They finished the season on a six-game losing streak, the second-longest losing streak in program history after the 1966 team lost seven in a row. Finally, the Orange will finish the season unranked for the first time since 1975.

By so many measures, this Syracuse team reached new lows. They did it while fighting hard and coming agonizingly close on so many occasions, but in the end, they were a team that just wasn’t ready to win yet. Hopefully, they learned a lot about how to win along the way.

And now, we can finally move on from this mess of a season. We can move on to a summer in which SU will hopefully be hitting the transfer portal hard to find new talent, primarily on the defensive end of the field. We move on to a fall in which the program will be welcoming one of, if not the best recruiting classes in the nation to campus.

We move on to a better tomorrow, where the lessons of this year will be infused with the talent of next. As we close the book on 2022, I already can’t wait to open it on 2023. Let’s Go Orange!