Syracuse Lacrosse: Four SU players land on Inside Lacrosse Media All-American Teams

It kind of flew under the radar due to the Syracuse Orange lacrosse game on Sunday, but Inside Lacrosse Magazine announced its inaugural Media All-American Teams.

Syracuse picked up a few nods including two on the first team. Sergio Salcido and Scott Firman both were named to that first squad. Salcido leads the Orange in assists and points with 33 and 50 respectively. The senior has also added 17 goals this year. Most impressively, Salcido had the game winning goal against Virginia and UNC (regular season game), both which were one-goal games.

While Salcido’s selection was not that surprising, Firman’s certainly was especially when you see that UNC’s Austin Pifani was slated on the third team and Notre Dame’s Garrett Epple was selected for the second team. No disrespect to Firman but I don’t think the media members got this one correct. I will say, that Firman has held together a defensive unit which lost its top long-pole before the season and still ended up being one of the high points of this Syracuse team and he is absolutely deserving of some recognition.

Nick Mariano gained second team honors for his 34 goals and 15 assists this year, sitting just one point behind Salcido. Mariano has been dominant with the ball in his Syracuse career. As Carc would tell you, he is Syracuse’s “alpha” guy. I love the chip on his shoulder that he plays with and it will be tough for any of these younger guys to fill his shoes next season.

Finally, Ben Williams snuck into the honorable mention category as a faceoff specialist along with Stephen Kelly of Carolina and Gerard Arceri of Penn State. Williams has won ten or fewer faceoffs in a game five times this year. He is no longer the dominant player he was when arriving on campus. Whether that’s due to injury or opponents getting more looks at him is anyone’s guess at this point. He has a .541 winning percentage this year, and quite frankly, I think he may have made the list based more on his previous season successes than 2017.

Did anyone from Syracuse get snubbed? I don’t think so, but let me know what you think.