The Ithaca College men’s soccer team is in the midst of a program revamp under new head coach Gabe Kuhn, who has brought success the team has not achieved in years. The key to the Bombers’ winning ways this season has been their defense. Led by senior goalkeeper Bryson Shaull, the Bombers’ back line conceded only one goal in their first seven games, collecting six clean sheets.

Shaull has had an outstanding start to his senior season. After sharing playing time in his junior season with then junior goalkeeper Johannes Berghahn and then sophomore goalkeeper Brayden Milbrandt, Shaull has kept sole possession of the starting role this season, playing a huge part in the Bombers’ squeaky-clean defensive record. His remarkable efforts have earned him Liberty League Defensive Performer of the Week twice on the season.

Besides his on-field contributions to the team’s success, Shaull has been quite an impactful locker room presence. After a heated ending to the team’s game at SUNY Cortland turned into a messy brawl, Shaull was the one to calm the squad down by circling up and giving a team talk. Kuhn has been impressed with Shaull’s leadership abilities, despite not being named one of the captains of the team.

“He’s the type of guy that when he talks, people listen,” Kuhn said. “He’s all about the team, the team’s success over his own success. He’s a guy to bring people together.”

Shaull’s leadership off the field has translated to the team’s play on the field. Shaull said communication has been one of the Bombers’ biggest strengths this season.

“I’ve never met a better group of guys that can communicate better on the field,” Shaull said. “It’s like a viral infection that just keeps spreading across the team.”

The Bombers’ unity can be accredited not only to team leaders like Shaull, but also to the coaching style of Kuhn and assistant coach Dylan Kilpatrick. Since Kilpatrick’s arrival to the program in June 2025, one of the things that stands out to Kilpatrick about Kuhn the most is the way that he interacts with his team.

“He’s so good at relationships with players,” Kilpatrick said. “He’s very good at connecting with guys on a very personal level. Not just a generic ‘Hey, how you doing?’”

Kuhn arrived on South Hill as the new head coach of the men’s soccer team in January 2025. Coming off of a 2024 season that only saw seven wins, Kuhn has been determined not only to change the team’s style of play, but to instill a winning mentality in his players’ heads.

One of the many trademarks of Kuhn’s coaching style is his emphasis on legacy, encouraging players to create their own legacy to leave behind on the program. This has left his players more motivated than ever.

“We want our legacy to be the team that’s nationally ranked,” Shaull said. “We want to win a Liberty League tournament and we want to go to the NCAA tournament, which is something this program has not done in a long time.”

The program’s last NCAA tournament appearance occurred in 2019, where the team fell in the second round. The Bombers have found themselves ranked No. 19 in the nation since Sept. 30. The last time the team broke into the top 25 rankings was the 2021 season, where the Bombers fell just short in the Liberty League Championship game.

Shaull has done plenty to make sure his legacy will be remembered. Through his first seven games of the season, Shaull is on pace to shatter the program’s goalkeeper single season shutout record of 11, most recently achieved by Eric Ferguson in 2005. In the eight games remaining of the 17 scheduled, Shaull will need to keep opponents out of the back of the net on six occasions to etch his name in the record books.

While Kuhn has guided the Bombers to a tough mental approach and high team chemistry, Kilpatrick has contributed heavily to the tactical approach and match day preparation for the squad, a role he is familiar with from his past experiences coaching professionally and as an assistant coach at Cortland.

“I’ve never seen as thorough of a scouting report as Coach Kilpatrick can put together,” Shaull said. “Scouting reports was something he did a lot at Cortland. It was a big piece of his job there and he said ‘I’m gonna bring that here.’ … You can tell he has that MLS [Major League Soccer] academy background.”

Kilpatrick is comfortable in environments where the level of play is high, and his years at New York City Football Club (NYCFC) and his United States Soccer Federation (USSF) B coaching license prove it, something that not many American coaches can say they have. Kilpatrick has brought a more advanced level of play to South Hill, with tactical insight and knowledge to go along with his scouting reports.

According to Kilpatrick, the Bombers play in a way that involves every player in each phase of their game plan. The striker is their first defender, and Shaull is their first attacker.

“Everybody has to be bought into all phases of the match,” Kilpatrick said. “Whether it’s pressing high up in their half, building out of our own half, scoring chances, or preventing chances, everybody has a role throughout every moment of the game.”

Buying in has not been a problem whatsoever for this Bomber squad. All 37 players on the unusually large roster seemed to have bought into Kuhn and Kilpatrick’s plan, which, because of the big roster size, relies heavily on a “next man up” mentality in order to get the most out of all of their bench players.

First-year defender CJ Abbott is among the bench players who have bought into the mentality, which he thinks has benefited the side greatly.

“It’s been something that’s built into the team,” Abbott said. “We all want to push each other, and it’s kind of just helping us grow as a team, and I think it’s making us be as successful as we are.”

When only 11 players out of 34 are on the pitch at a time, minutes aren’t easy to come by. Abbott has made the most of his 244 minutes in eight games this season, which has earned him three “Hard-Hat MVPs” — another piece of culture that Kuhn has brought to the program.

Abbott credited the team’s older players for helping him settle into the team and become acclimated to the college level of play.

“They’ve been a guiding force, I would say, especially for me,” Abbott said. “Just keeping my head straight within the classroom, on the field, in practice. It’s been a really easy outlet.”

Being a part of the defensive unit, Abbott has been able to work closely with two of the Bombers’ captains, junior midfielder Gustav Bauerle and graduate student midfielder Ikey Borden, as well as Shaull.

“Every game me and him [Shaull] have a little conversation,” Abbott said. “He tells me to clear my head, focus on what’s going on and to just have fun.”

The Liberty League Championship-aspiring team has eight matches left on their schedule, all of them being in-conference games. The Bombers’ hot start to the season will be tested in this second half of the season — the most crucial run of games that they will have.