After falling short to St. John Fisher University 12-11 for its first match of the season, the men’s lacrosse team looks to put that loss and its lackluster 2024 season aside. The Bombers are led for a second year by head coach Tommy Pearce as they hope to bounce back.
In Pearce’s first year as an Ithaca Bomber, the South Hill squad finished with an 8-8 season record and a 1-6 record in the Liberty League Championship Tournament. This year, the Bombers will look to flip the switch on the Liberty League and reach the conference tournament for the first time since 2021.
IC Junior midfielder Sam Baker is one of the many players who had to adjust from an old-school lacrosse scheme to the modern one that Pearce brings with him.
“Coach Pearce is very modernized,” Baker said. “Using six guys to beat the other team. He’s very big on non-selfish lacrosse. He believes that if somebody scores a goal, everybody on the field scores a goal there.”
For Pearce, turning a program around is nothing new to him. He helped revitalize Frostburg State, leading them to a program record 16 wins in 2015, making them a nationally ranked school. Pearce was also named Capital Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2013 and 2015 as a member of the Bobcats.
Pearce then coached at Allegheny College to be their inaugural men’s lacrosse coach, where he was their coach for five seasons, four of which games were played. When he started in 2020, his Gators only recorded one win in his first year. In his second season, Pearce gave the program an identity by leading them to eight wins and the opportunity to play in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Tournament.
Bombers senior midfielder Graham Brady said he loves how quickly Pearce connected with his new team.
“It’s hard going into a new school with a bunch of random kids you don’t know and have never met, especially when none of them are your recruits,” Brady said. “In the beginning, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to get really on someone, or maybe not be as hard on you right away. Now, he’s definitely changed that mentality and picked up with his attitude.”
Pearce said he aligns his goals with the team’s goals, which are to win the competitive Liberty League tournament and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
“I like to have our team set their goals, and then I think my job as a coach is to lay out a path so that the guys on the team can achieve the goals they set for themselves,” Pearce said. “So I would say that their goals involve putting themselves in a position to be in contention for the NCAA tournament.”
In college sports, athletes usually get four or five years to make their mark on the program before they have to walk off the field for the final time and move their tassel from right to left. This offseason, the Bombers graduated starting goalkeeper Cole Corrigan, defenseman/long stick midfielder Hunter Wallace, midfielder Derek Stout, goalkeeper Charlie Paras and defenseman/long stick midfielder Aidan Martin. The Bombers also lost standout attacker John Sramac because he transferred to Robert Morris University to play at the Division I level.
The Bombers did lose several players this offseason, but they also returned many familiar faces. Attacker Charlie Niebuhr returns as a graduate student after suffering an injury late last season. Graduate midfielder Kyle Savery returns to the team after missing the entire 2024 season with a torn ACL. Junior attacker Tim Rogers also returns after breaking his foot in the first spring practice of the Bombers’ 2024 season. After missing his first-year season as a Bomber, now sophomore midfielder Ethan Adrid takes the field for the first time as an Ithaca Bomber.
Pearce recognizes how tough the Bombers’ schedule is, both in and out of conference. He also sees it as an opportunity to build a resume for a team that could contend with the best in Division III. Four Liberty League rivals were four of the best teams in all of Division III lacrosse: Rochester Institute of Technology, who went to the national championship last year, Saint Lawrence University, Liberty League winner Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union College. The Bombers will look to get past their rivals to stand out.
“There’s five teams on our schedule that are preseason top 20 in the country,” Pearce said. “St. John Fisher had a really great run last year, Hamilton is getting votes. … When we play teams with a reasonable bus ride, they happen to be pretty good teams. If we’re able to win some tough games, we can display ourselves positively to everybody out there.”
As Brady eyes the start of this season, he believes this 2025 Bombers team has something to prove to all of Division III lacrosse after struggling to get over the hump these past few years.
“I think with this season, we’re coming in with a vengeance from the last couple of seasons,” Brady said. “I just want to go out and lead our team to the Liberty League Tournament, which is something we haven’t done in quite some years and is a big goal of my senior class specifically.”