This is the first official weekend of spring 2023, and the Syracuse Orange lacrosse teams are looking to ring in the season with a pair of wins.

The women are going right back out on the road for a conference game with the Louisville Cardinals at 12 PM, while the men stay home to resume their rivalry with the Hobart Statesmen at 1 PM.

Both games will be shown on ACC Network Extra.

Women — Louisville Cardinals, 12 PM

I’m just slightly worried about this game for the women. Louisville’s not a great team; the Cardinals are 4-5 and 1-3 in the ACC. The thing that worries me is the fact that this is SU’s fifth game in 15 days, and it’s against a mediocre team on the tail of four straight games against highly ranked opponents.

A lot of energy has been drained over the course of those games, including a huge 16-11 win over No. 6 Stony Brook not even 72 hours ago. It just feels like a classic letdown situation, but hopefully this Orange team is above that. I hope the ladies make me feel silly for even considering this, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

• All-time series: Syracuse leads, 11-1
• Last meeting: Syracuse W, 23-13 on April 16, 2022
• Louisville this season: 4-5, 1-3 ACC

The Cardinals opened the season with a close loss (5-4) to the now-No.4 ranked team in the country, Denver. They then won four of their next five games including picking up an ACC win over Pitt, 12-9. Since then, they’ve lost three games in a row to Boston College, North Carolina, and Marquette.

Scouting Louisville

UL is a team with a big-time international flavor to them. Coached by Scott Teeter, who also head coaches the Canadian women's national team, the Cardinals’ top five scorers all hail from outside the U.S. (Canada and Japan, specifically).

Nicole Perroni (25G, 3A, 28P) is the first of four main goal scorers for Louisville. But she does a lot more than that as the overall leader of this team. Perroni leads the Cards in goals (25), points (28), shots (54), ground balls (18) and caused turnovers (T-1, 12). She’s also second on the team in draw controls (17). She’s a dangerous player who played a big role for Canada at last summer’s World Championships. No. 88 is definitely the main threat for the Orange defense to look out for.

Kokoro Nakazawa (14G, 8A, 22P), Kylea Dobson (15G, 3A, 18P), and Hannah Morris (14G, 1A, 15P) are the other main goal-scoring threats for this team. These three, along with Perroni, have combined for 68-of-92 Louisville goals this season; that’s 74 percent of the team’s total goals on the season.

Goalie Sara Addeche has started all nine games in goal for the Cards this season, and has pretty decent numbers. She has an 11.04 GAA and a .460 save percentage, averaging 8.33 saves per game.

Men — Hobart Statesmen, 1 PM

The battle for the Kraus-Simmons Trophy renews itself inside the JMA Dome in the 108th all-time meeting between Syracuse and Hobart, and the 37th meeting with the trophy on the line. The Kraus-Simmons Trophy is named after Roy Simmons, Sr. and Hobart coach Babe Kraus. Hobart is ‘Cuse’s most common opponent in their history.

• All-time series: Syracuse leads, 79-26-2
• Kraus-Simmons Trophy winner: Syracuse, 33-3 (every year except 1986, 2006, 2013)
• Last meeting: Syracuse W, 18-16 on March 6, 2022
• Hobart this year: 4-3, 0-0 A-10

Hobart is 4-3 this season with wins over Canisius, Colgate, Robert Morris and Providence, and losses to Lehigh, Cornell, and Dartmouth.

Scouting Hobart

The Statesmen have an offense that’s very well balanced. They have seven double-digit point scorers on the season, but six of those players have scored between 10-13 points so far. Similarly, after their leading goal scorer, they have six players who’ve scored between 7-10 goals.

Anthony Dattellas (19G, 8A, 27P) is easily their leading scorer on the season, scoring more than twice as many points as anyone else on the roster. Will Delano (8G, 5A, 13P), John Jude Considine (10G, 1A, 11P), Chad Bach (9G, 2A, 11P), James Greene (7G, 4A, 11P), Alex Rosa (9G, 1A, 10P), and Bradley Simas (7G, 3A, 10P) round out the well-rounded offense.

Hobart’s primary FOGO, Adam Shea, is facing-off at a little above 50 percent this season (92-of-180, .511%). His backup, Seamus Schofield, has slightly better numbers in far fewer chances (20-of-36, .556%).

Loukas Sotiropoulos was their starting goalie for their first six games and really struggled, surrendering a 15.23 GAA and .444 save percentage. Elhanan Wilson stepped in as the starter in their most recent game and played well, making 12 stops with a .522 save percentage.

Can the Orange make it a clean Saturday sweep?