This season the men’s lacrosse team faces the unenviable task of replacing the best goalie the team has ever known. Luckily, the Bombers’ boast the scoring offense in the Empire 8.

Despite the noticeable loss of stellar goalie Dennis Butler ’07, who set Ithaca records for most saves in a season (260) and a career (833), the Bombers, who advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament last season, return virtually all of their offensive attack, highlighted by senior attacks Matt Nelligan and Logan Bobzien and senior midfielder Craig Lepiane.

In 2007, the trio combined to tally 130 goals and 62 assists. Nelligan’s team-leading total of 59 goals is the second highest season total in Ithaca history. Nelligan also owns the third highest season total, having scored 50 goals in 2006. Nelligan’s 126 career goals rank him fourth all time.

But even more than Nelligan’s offensive prowess, the Bombers field a deep lineup full of upperclassmen, something Head Coach Jeff Long said is essential this season.

“All the seniors have done a real good job of not just playing well, but providing a good example to all the kids on the team,” Long said.

Senior midfielder and captain Mike Nowak, senior long pole Brandon Rose and junior defender and captain Neth Wiedemann all provide solid, if not spectacular, on-field performance and leadership.

In the Bombers’ first two games this season — a 21–10 win against Lycoming College on Feb. 24 and a 13–8 victory against the University of Scranton this past Saturday — the Blue and Gold have gotten 10 goals and four assists from Nelligan, as expected.

They’ve also seen the emergence of sophomore attack Nic Heckman (three goals and three assists) and junior attack Alec Seifert (four goals and one assist) early on.

Seifert’s performance in particular is encouraging for the Bombers, as he had been dealing with injuries during his first two seasons. One player the Bombers will not have this season is junior midfielder Matt Ruhnke, who is done for the season with a torn ACL.

Long said Ruhnke will be particularly missed on faceoffs, one of two areas Long said he is concerned about.

“Our most inexperienced positions are the two specialty positions, which are goalie and the faceoff,” Long said. “We had a real good kid in Matt Ruhnke, but he blew out his ACL and now we’ve got a freshman starting. It’s certainly an area of concentration right now.”

The faceoff duties fell on the shoulders of freshman Michael Hennessy, who Lepiane said has done a more than respectable job.

“Hennessy is stepping up to the next level, especially coming into program like we have,” Lepiane said. “He took every single faceoff [against Scranton] and he was well over 60 percent.”

Long can also probably breathe a bit easier regarding his goalie situation, as junior Ben Connery has made 21 saves in his two starts this season, earning a victory in both of them.

Long said the ultimate goal of this year’s team isn’t to hit any milestones or rack up gaudy statistics, but rather to defeat a certain rival en route to an Empire 8 title and an NCAA playoff run.

“This group isn’t really individually oriented,” Long said. “Our big mission here is to maintain our ability to compete in the Empire 8. I know the Cortland game has been a thorn in these guys’ backs the last few years.”

Bobzien said this year’s team is loaded with individual talent, but how the team comes together as a whole is the most important thing.

“We’ve got a lot of talent,” Bobzien said. “We’re just working on coming together [and] trying to stay focused day by day.”

Lepiane said the Blue and Gold are aiming for a National Championship and nothing less.

“After the two games we’re coming together better than last year,” he said. “We just take each game at a time and we’re hoping that doing that can help us make school history.”