The Ithaca College men’s lacrosse team earned its first Liberty League Championship Tournament victory of the year, defeating the Vassar College Brewers 13-6 March 22, extending its winning streak to five games. Junior midfielder Cullen Adams led the way for the Bombers with three goals, continuing the wave of momentum the Bombers offense is riding.

After a strong offensive performance against SUNY Brockport on March 19, Adams looped around the net and lit the lamp for the first two goals of the game. Both goals looked nearly identical and had the same effect on the fans who were fired up early.

After only five minutes of play, Adams got his hat trick, and the momentum was clearly in favor of the South Hill squad. Senior midfielder Graham Brady wristed a close-shot goal to push the lead to 5-0 with four minutes to play in the quarter. The Bombers finished the quarter tacking on two more goals.

The Brewers started the second quarter hot, scoring four unanswered goals as they started to sway momentum in their favor. The Bombers finally responded with two goals of their own thanks to sophomore midfielder Ethan Adrid and senior attacker/midfielder Jack Pastore.

Head coach Tommy Pearce said he was aware of the struggles that the Bombers were having in the second quarter, which is why he called a timeout with 2:15 left to go in the half. The timeout paid off because the Bombers scored two more goals to conclude the first thirty minutes of play. After struggling early in the second quarter, the Bombers still led 9-4 at halftime.

“We were giving their offense opportunities by being sloppy on offense ourselves,” Pearce said. “They’re a good team, and if you give them extra offensive possessions, they’re gonna score eventually. We pressed our offense to make better decisions with the ball and value the ball more.”

The second half started relatively slowly, but after seven minutes of play, junior defenseman Jace Dockx opened up the second half with a goal to push the Bombers’ lead to 10-4. Both the Bombers and Brewers were able to get the rubber through the cage as the clock wound down on an uneventful third quarter.

After four minutes of typical back-and-forth action, sophomore attacker Lucas Proctor was hit hard by Brewers’ sophomore defenseman Hayden Sofield, leaving him on the turf for a few minutes. Fortunately, he was able to get up and walk on his own. After his brother was knocked down a couple minutes prior, senior attacker Kyle Proctor leveled junior midfielder Hayden Stoltzfoos and willingly took the one-minute penalty he was due. Thankfully, Lucas Proctor returned to the game after five minutes on the sidelines. The Bombers looked fired up after the hit as junior attacker Brendan Occhino sniped one through the nets to make it 13-5, the Bombers largest lead of the day.

The rain started to pour in the final minutes, but the Bombers were able to leave the inclement weather with a 13-6 win over their in-conference rival.

Pearce said he knows how talented the Liberty League tournament is, so he values winning within a tough conference.

“Once you get into Liberty League play, every game is so important for your chances of making it to the Liberty League tournament at the end of the year,” Pearce said. “Every single win in the Liberty League is important, and just winning the first one and getting it under your belt hopefully takes a little bit of pressure off some of the other ones.”

The Bombers return to out-of-conference play against the Hamilton College Continentals at 7 pm. March 25 at Higgins Stadium.