Orange Eagle Trophy: The Concession Speech

After a long and hard-fought battle, we here at BC Interruption are proud (okay, maybe not) to offer our handshake to the guys and gals at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, as Syracuse has clinched the 2014-2015 Orange Eagle Trophy. With this past weekend's loss by the Boston College women's lacrosse team in the NCAA tournament, combined with the elimination of the softball team in the ACC tournament, any faint hopes of erasing the deficit have evaporated. Syracuse can run up the score a bit by winning more hardware in women's or men's lacrosse, but surely they will be gracious and do no such thing.

For most of the year, BC and Syracuse were locked in a dead heat in this venerable competition, and the Eagles largely have two groups of people to thank for that. Okay, well, one group of people and one individual: the football team, for scoring a win over Syracuse on Thanksgiving weekend to earn 12 points, and Super Liv Westphal for racking up some points in Cross Country and preventing that sport from being a total bloodbath for BC. (Syracuse is very good at the whole 'running really fast' thing. Make of that what you will.)

Predictably, Syracuse fired back and surged in to the lead on the strength of a 4-0 clean sweep and 18 Orange Eagle points in men's and women's basketball. (Basketball is stupid, you guys. Can't we make this worth fewer points?) Things looked pretty dire at that point, but BC women's lacrosse's first ever win at the Carrier Dome back on February 28 evened things up all over again and set up a dramatic conclusion.

The weekend of March 21-22 was when BC's hopes really went down the drain. The women's hockey team was poised to possibly snag a 10 point bonus for BC by winning a national title, but came up short at the Frozen Four in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, back in Boston, the Winter from Hell continued to wreak havoc upon BC's softball season, forcing the cancellation of the BC-Syracuse home softball series, where BC could have racked up some more points; the games would have been no slam dunk, but BC did have at least a slight edge over Syracuse in softball this year, and losing out on those potential points put BC further behind the 8-ball.

We all pretty much knew that BC and Syracuse would be on a collision course to meet in the women's lacrosse postseason, and it happened two weekends ago. Syracuse's soul-crushing triple OT win over the Eagles gave them the OE lead for good; the Orange going on to win the ACC title then pretty much sealed it. BC needed a miracle run to the NCAA championship in women's lax (with a win vs. Syracuse along the way) in order to reverse the deficit, but it was not to be.

The focus now turns to 2015-2016 to see if BC can claim its first OE trophy in three tries. It's going to be a tough challenge, as basketball is likely to be an uphill battle again, football will have to win on the road at the Carrier Dome, and the inevitable 15,000 lacrosse meetings will happen without the services of Mikaela Rix or Covie Stanwick for BC. But the Orange Eagle is always full of twists, turns, and surprises—and I'm sure next year will be no different.

Congrats to TNIAAM and Syracuse on this historic and very important accomplishment. On to next year!