With the 2024 season on the horizon, the Ithaca College men’s lacrosse team has been preparing to enter a new era. After over 30 years at the helm, former head coach Jeff Long stepped down on June 1, 2023, and was replaced by Tommy Pearce.

Pearce, who is in his first year with the program, previously coached at Allegheny College from 2019–23 and Frostburg State from 2009–18. At both of these schools, Pearce had to start from nothing, as the two schools did not have varsity lacrosse programs when he arrived. 

Fortunately for Pearce, this time around, the Bombers have been a competitive program for decades, placing a 515–259 record in their 56 years of being a varsity lacrosse program. The squad returned their two top goal scorers from the 2023 season in senior attacks John Sramac and Charlie Niebuhr. Pearce said he is counting on the two seniors and is excited to see what they can do this season.

“It’s nice to have a lot of goals returning in those two guys,” Pearce said.

Despite the initial nerves about the coaching change, Niebuhr said he quickly became excited for what Pearce can bring to the table.

“Pearce came in right away and set the team culture,” Niebuhr said. “It’s very more team based rather than individual.”

Niebuhr said a key difference is that the team is looking to develop a more offensive focus this year and wants to always be playing on the attack, opposed to mainly focusing on defense.

“I think Pearce has done a really good job working on how we get our [clearance] to become part of our offense and how we get our offense to become part of our ride,” Niebuhr said. “I think our offense is really gonna be the key to this year.”

Unfortunately for the Bombers, the offense will have pressure to perform after the South Hill squad lost all four starting defenders and their starting goalkeeper from the 2023 campaign. Last season, the team started out 7–2, however, it lost its last six games and finished 7–8 on the season.

Pearce said he is looking at all options to fill the voids, including first-year student defenders Owen Zipfel and Ethan Bland, who impressed him in the early practices.

Luckily for the Bombers’ first-year players, their transition to the collegiate game will be made easier with the assistance of senior midfielder Kyle Savery. Savery suffered a torn ACL in the fall and will be out for the 2024 season but said he is doing everything possible to continue to help his team.

“I’m just trying to do basically everything that I can do that isn’t on the field now,” Savery said. “I’m actually gonna be helping run the substitution box for the team during the games.” 

Savery said he and the other seniors understand their pivotal position of being the leaders during a coaching transition.

“It’s a new era of Ithaca lacrosse,” Savery said. “Me and the current senior class, we’re trying to set a very strong foundation for coach Pearce’s start.”

Pearce said he has been impressed with the leadership from the upperclassmen because they did a great job organizing fall practices and making sure the team was staying sharp over breaks.

“For me as my first year here, [I’m] just kind of watching how hard the guys work,” Pearce said. “[It] makes me really happy … to see that the guys care that much.”

A tough challenge the team faced was staying strong over the five-week winter break when everyone went home. Niebuhr said he and the other upperclassmen got creative in terms of keeping the team active and organized. 

“So over break we made individual groups that were kind of geographically based,” Niebuhr said.

Each group chat held other members accountable, making sure everyone was getting to the field and going to the gym to get the workouts in. 

Pearce also said he was impressed with the strength and conditioning program at the college. He knows that lacrosse is a physical sport and thinks that the work the team puts in during the fall will set them up for success on the field in the spring. 

“We have some really great strength coaches and obviously a dedicated space for varsity athletes,” Pearce said. “I think our guys really bought into it.”

After a challenging fall of adjusting to a new coach and scheme, the Bombers’ next challenge is to face the gauntlet that is present in the Liberty League conference, which features four teams in the preseason top 20, including No. 3 Rochester Institute of Technology, No. 12 Union College, No. 14 St. Lawrence University and No. 17 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

The new team has earned the trust of their new coach and Pearce said he is letting his team set their own goals.

“I don’t give the team goals, those guys kind of set the goals for themselves,” Pearce said. “I think that my goal as a coach [is] for those guys to achieve their goals.”

This current senior class has yet to win a Liberty League tournament game, as well as make an NCAA tournament appearance. While it will not be easy, the South Hill squad believe that this year will be different. 

Last season, the Bombers struggled in conference play, going a mere 2–5 and Niebuhr said there is always a point in conference play known as the “gauntlet” where they have to face teams like RIT, Union and St. Lawrence, which are some of the best programs in Division lll lacrosse. In recent years, the Bombers have not been able to overcome this “gauntlet” stretch and the focus this season is to stay locked in during this tough time.

“This year, I think there’s a new culture. … Even if there’s some bumps in the road, we’re gonna overcome that,” said Niebuhr.

With their difficult schedule, Savery said he thinks the team is going to catch people off guard.

“I think we’re gonna surprise some people this year,” Savery said.

Pearce said he sees this tough schedule as an opportunity to test the team’s toughness and give a boost to the team’s resume as they fight for a bid to NCAAs.

“Rather than looking at the challenge of how good our opponents are, is to look at it as an opportunity,” said Pearce. 

The Bombers are off to a solid start this season after a 12–10 victory over the St. John Fisher University Cardinals. The win marked Pearce’s first win of his tenure as Bomber’s head coach and the first win since 1987 that longtime head coach Jeff Long was not on the sideline. After, the Bombers took on the Lycoming College Warriors on Feb. 28 and left the field with a dominant 24–2 victory.

The Bombers will continue their season with a road trip to face SUNY Geneseo at 12 p.m. March 2 in Geneseo, New York.