Coming off its 21st straight Final Four appearance, the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team is kicking off the 2003-04 fall season with a preseason vacation.

McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Md., will serve as the site for the Sixth Annual Price Modern ‘Lacrosse for Leukemia’ Tournament to be played this Saturday.

The all-day exhibition features 14 of the best lacrosse programs in the nation, all displaying their talents for a great cause. All proceeds from the event will benefit the Maryland Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Last year, the tournament raised more than $100,000 for research and services.

‘The guys love it,’ University of Maryland, Baltimore County head coach Don Zimmerman said. ‘They get to play lacrosse against outstanding competition.’

To remind everyone of the real cause, though, each team is paired with a special youth ‘Patient Hero’ who acts as the team captain for the day.

‘But they also see the bigger picture and that’s how fortunate that we are able to play lacrosse at a D-I level,’ Zimmerman said. ‘This is a great experience and we try to do anything we can to help out.’

UMBC will be one of three teams that Syracuse plays against Saturday in the Baltimore suburb. The format is a round-robin tournament, with each team playing three others during the day. Each game will feature two 25-minute halves, with play being spread out over seven different fields.

The Orangemen start against host Loyola College at 10 a.m., and wrap up with a game against the University of Albany, which is coming off its first NCAA Tournament appearance last year.

Last fall, Syracuse managed only an 11-11 tie against the Great Danes at the Pumpkin Stick-Out, a tournament played annually at Coyne Field.

While the tournament benefits a great cause, it also serves for coaches as a measuring bar as to where their program is early in the year. It also will give Syracuse head coach John Desko a chance to look at his nine freshmen and start figuring out how to replace SU’s best defender, Sol Bliss, and a starting forward, Mike Springer, who both graduated.

And for some schools, like UMBC and Albany, it’s also a chance to see how they stack up against some of the best teams in the country.

‘It will really give us an opportunity to see who we are against some pretty talented competition,’ Zimmerman said. ‘It’s a great opportunity to measure ourselves against Syracuse, Butler and Johns Hopkins.’

Johns Hopkins defeated Syracuse in one of last May’s national semifinals. JHU beat SU, 19-8, only to go on to lose to Virginia, 9-7, in the finals.

The two Final Four representatives are obviously the biggest draw, but other teams draw attention as well.

Nationally-ranked Towson, North Carolina, Georgetown, Air Force, Colgate, Butler, Quinnipiac and Drexel are all in the fold, as is Division III power Washington College.

In last year’s tournament, Syracuse defeated Maryland, 9-8, in the opener, and then proceeded to tie Towson, 5-5. In the finale, SU lost to UMBC, 9-6.

Said Desko last fall: ‘Fall Ball is mostly for us to see the freshmen, transfers and guys back from last year’s team that are fighting for a starting position.’

Published on October 2, 2003 at 12:00 pm