The Syracuse Orange women’s lacrosse team is returning home for the first of two games in the JMA Dome this week with a Wednesday afternoon matchup with program legend and all-time leading scorer Katie Rowan and her Albany Great Danes.

The game is scheduled for opening draw at 4 PM on ACC Network Extra.

• All-time series: Syracuse, 15-0
• Last meeting: Syracuse W, 18-11 on April 19, 2022
• Albany last season: 8-9, 5-1 America East
• Albany this season: 2-2
• Katie Rowan-Thomson: 5th season as Albany’s head coach; 35-27 overall record

The Albany Great Danes make the trip across I-90 for the annual battle of Capital vs. CNY.

This season, Katie Rowan’s group is 2-2 and have won back-to-back games after dropping their first two contests of the season. They started the year with losses to a ranked Johns Hopkins team on the road and a home loss to Cornell. Since then, they have picked up wins over Fairfield and Brown, the latter of which came on a goal with 11 seconds left for an 8-7 road win.

The Danes’ best player is a Baldwinsville native, junior midfielder Katie Pascale. She’s off to an amazing start this season with 24 points (13G, 11A). Pascale, who’s the reigning America East Offensive Player of the Week, is currently fifth in the nation averaging 6 points per game. She also leads the team in draw controls with 25.

She’s joined on offense by a trio of players averaging at least two goals per game this season: junior attack Bryar Hogg (8G, 5A), senior midfield Sarah Falk (9G), and senior attack Shonly Wallace (8G, 1A).

Senior goalie Aislinn Sweeney is the reigning America East Defensive Player of the Week for making 18 saves while only surrendering 14 goals in Albany’s two wins last week.

Record Book

Last week’s Pittsburgh game got me to thinking after I saw that Kate Mashewske reached a major career milestone as part of her big day against the Panthers.

The Orange draw specialist picked up her 300th career draw win early on in the game, becoming just the second ‘Cuse player to ever reach that mark.

As a result, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at where some of SU’s veterans are ranking on the all-time program lists, specifically Meaghan Tyrrell, Megan Carney, and Kate Mashewske.

Let’s take a look:

Points

1. Katie Rowan — 396
2. Kayla Treanor — 393
3. Alyssa Murray — 362
4. Emily Hawryschuk — 341
5. Christina Dove — 335
6. Meaghan Tyrrell — 335
7. Michelle Tumolo — 278
8. Halley Quillinan — 246
9. Leigh-Ann Zimmer — 233
10. Riley Donahue — 227
11. Megan Carney — 223

Goals

1. Emily Hawryschuk — 272
2. Kayla Treanor — 260
3. Christina Dove — 250
4. Katie Rowan — 232
5. Alyssa Murray — 226
6. Meaghan Tyrrell — 211
7. Halley Quillinan — 207
8. Leigh-Ann Zimmer — 171
9. Megan Carney — 149

Assists

1. Katie Rowan — 164
2. Michelle Tumolo — 137
3. Alyssa Murray — 136
4. Kayla Treanor — 133
5. Meaghan Tyrrell — 124

Draw Controls

1. Kailah Kempney — 439
2. Kate Mashewske — 309

All things seem possible for Meaghan Tyrrell, especially with the start she’s off to this season (6.75 points per game). She’s 61 points, 61 goals, and 40 assists off each school record.

It would take something extraordinary for her to finish atop all three lists, but each one of them are potentially with in reach. Finishing in the top-3 of each list is a very real possibility for her, an accomplishment for which she would stand alone in program history. It’s going to be a fun subplot of this season to track Meaghan’s progress on her assault on the program record book.

Meg Carney is too far down to factor into the top of any of these lists, but she absolutely has plenty of room for upward mobility this year. She has a very good chance to finish not only in the top-10 of all three lists, but she could find herself somewhere in the No. 6-8 range for all three if she keeps up her hot start to the season.

Now that Kate has reached a number that only one other player in program history has reached, she turns her attention to the next milestone number of 400 and, eventually, Kailah Kempney’s program record of 439 draw wins.

Kate’s currently 130 wins off the record, a number that could be within reach this season if she has another great year. If Kate decides to use her extra year of eligibility next season, she would easily set a new program record by then at the latest.

All of these numbers will be fun to check in on throughout the season, and they could be big numbers if the torrid start to the season continues all spring. I can’t wait to see what’s next!