Capital Region College Lacrosse Opening Weekend Roundup
Opening weekend for Capital Region college lacrosse teams is here and gone and only one of the four Division I teams was victorious.
The biggest matchup of the weekend was in Syracuse between Scott Marr's 15th ranked Great Danes and the number 20 Orange. It was the eighth time in the last nine years that UAlbany opened its season at the Carrier Dome, but the 2019 Scott Marr squad had a very different look from the team that won 15-3 a year ago.
Gone was 45 percent of the Great Danes' scoring from last year's run to the Final Four including, of course, faceoff superstar TD Ierlan and goalie JD Colarusso. After a 3-3 tie late in the first quarter, Syracuse went on a 5-0 run and controlled the game the rest of the way for a 13-5 win over UAlbany.
The UAlbany women and Siena men both have new head coaches; two people very familiar with the Capital Region. Former Bethlehem star and Syracuse 3-time All-American Katie Rowan led the Great Danes to a season-opening 15-13 win over Yale. UAlbany scored the game's final four goals. Speaking of UAlbany, former associate head coach Liam Gleason is now at Siena. His Saints took on a dangerous Hobart team that put up 22 goals in a win, spoiling Gleason's head coaching debut.
The Siena women's lacrosse team, meanwhile, held a 5-3 lead over Columbia at the half before a high-scoring second half favored the Lions and Siena fell 13-12 on the road.