Syracuse lacrosse: Spallina grabs multiple weekly awards, Orange men jump up in polls

The men reaped the rewards of their big win, while the women fell back a little after their mid-week loss.

When you pick up a big win over the two-time defending national champions who’ve beaten you seven times in a row, the lacrosse world takes notice.

That’s what’s happened for the Syracuse Orange and Joey Spallina this week.

With perhaps the best, most important performance of his career, due to the level of the opponent, Joey picked up multiple accolades in reaction. His four goals and five points were one of the key driving forces behind the Orange’s big takedown of the Irish in the Dome on Saturday.

He was named both the ACC Offensive Player of the Week as well as the AXIA Time Men’s DI Player of the Week, which is a national award conducted by Inside Lacrosse and voted on by the fans.

This is the fifth time in 10 weeks this season that a ‘Cuse player has been named offensive player of the week by the ACC, three more than any other school. It’s also the third time Joey’s gotten the award, the most of any individual. It’s the first time this year a ‘Cuse player has gotten the AXIA accolade.

As a team, the Orange jumped up into the Top 5 of the national polls after the big win. They’re now No. 4 in both the coaches’ and media poll, setting up a massive showdown on Long Island this weekend with Cornell, whose ranked No. 1 in both polls.

Meanwhile, the women found themselves in very different spots at No. 7 in the coaches’ poll and No. 11 in the media poll. The Orange were ranked sixth in both polls last week, and only fell one spot in the coaches’ while tumbling five spots in the media poll. The media ranking is a little silly given that SU is inexplicably one spot behind a Virginia team they beat less than two weeks ago, not to mention two spots behind a Stanford team they also beat.

Both teams will be back in action this Saturday. The women start the day on the road at Virginia Tech at 12 PM on ACC Network Extra, while the men face Cornell on LI at 4 PM on Corrigan Sports Entertainment.