The Atlantic Coast Conference announced its 2015 All-ACC Men's Lacrosse Team on Wednesday. The Syracuse Orange and North Carolina Tar Heels led with five players each. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish finished with four players named to the All-ACC list while Duke managed four. Finally, the Virginia Cavaliers were represented only by goalie Matt Barrett. To his credit, Barrett has been a rock for this team. He's kept the Cavs in games that could have potentially been blowouts and has looked spectacular over the last few weeks.
Of the six attackmen named to the list, two each were from UNC, Notre Dame, and SU. Kevin Rice and Dylan Donahue landed SU's two attack spots. Senior Kevin Rice is fourth in the nation in assists per game and tied at eighth for points per game. And who would you guess Rice is tied with? Yup, that would be Dylan Donahue who also has the fifth most goals per game in the country. Donahue is a junior so there is still plenty of time for him to end up atop the SU record books.
Nicky Galasso was the lone "true" midfielder from Syracuse named, although Ben Williams earned All-ACC at the faceoff position. Galasso has more than doubled his offensive production from last season, producing 2.64 points per game in 2015. Adding to that, the fifth year senior is one of the most accurate shooters in Division I with a .469 shooting percentage. As the top rated recruit in the class of 2010 Nicky chose to attend UNC. Hampered by a foot injury and faced with stiff incoming competition at the attack position, Galasso transferred to Syracuse to start his junior year. As a true attackman, I was a little surprised we really didn't see him play attack at all while Staats was out of the lineup. However, watch the offense on Friday, oftentimes Galasso will invert with an attackmen, especially Donahue, putting Donahue higher up in the box and Galasso about goal-line extended.
Williams came into Syracuse this year as an unknown. He will end this season with his name plastered in the top ten of several different Syracuse records. The Minnesota native is currently rocking a .693 faceoff winning percentage...Oh and we get two more years of this; he's a sophomore.
As for the defense, Notre Dame's Matt Landis, a no brainer, was joined by UNC's Jake Bailey and SU's Brandon Mullins on the All-ACC list. I thought Mullins, and for the most part the defense as a whole, far and away exceeded expectations. Maybe that's due to the faceoff play this year but nevertheless, Mullins has developed into one of the top long-poles in the country and can be counted on as a lock-down defender.
Here's the full list:
A - Jimmy Bitter, Sr., North Carolina
A - Joey Sankey, Sr., North Carolina
A - Conor Doyle, Sr., Notre Dame
A - Matt Kavanagh, Jr., Notre Dame
A - Kevin Rice, Sr., Syracuse
A - Dylan Donahue, Jr., Syracuse
M - Deemer Class, Jr., Duke
M - Myles Jones, Jr., Duke
M - Chad Tutton, Sr., North Carolina
M - Sergio Perkovic, So., Notre Dame
M - Nicky Galasso, Sr., Syracuse
D - Jake Bailey, Sr., North Carolina
D - Matt Landis, Jr., Notre Dame
D - Brandon Mullins, Jr., Syracuse
F/O - Ben Williams, So., Syracuse
SSM - Will Haus, Sr., Duke
LSM - Ryan Kilpatrick, Sr., North Carolina
G - Matt Barrett, So., Virginia
The Orange will take on UNC on Friday at 8 p.m. ET at PPL Park. The game can be seen on ESPNU and heard on ESPN Radio 97.7 FM. Of course you can also follow me @Orangelax for updates throughout the game.