For the first time since 2021, the Ithaca College men’s lacrosse team will dance in the Liberty League Championship Tournament because the Bombers won an 11-10 thriller over the Clarkson University Golden Knights on April 19.
The Bombers have a 31-9 all-time record against the Golden Knights, but their last matchup resulted in a 13-12 Golden Knights win.
The game started fast, with an early goal from Golden Knights’ senior midfielder Alex Seiler. As the rain continued to pour, the fans at Higgins grew louder.
The rest of the first quarter was slow, with both teams slipping and sliding on the turf for the first 15 minutes. With 6.6 seconds left in the period, Seiler swung one through Ithaca junior goalkeeper Andrew Minard’s net to make it 2-0 for the Golden Knights to conclude a defense-heavy first period.
The second period began with aggressive action from both sides, with the Bombers and the Golden Knights tussling for the rubber every chance they got. After a six-minute scoring drought, Ithaca senior midfielder Graham Brady and junior midfielder Cullen Adams sliced two through the cage to get on the scoreboard.
Clarkson responded with a bounce shot from graduate student midfielder Andrew Kearney, which surprised Minard and gave the Golden Knights a 3-2 lead with 8:07 left in the first half. The Golden Knights tallied two more, but Brady scored his second of the afternoon to conclude the first 30 minutes of play, with the Golden Knights on top 5-3.
Head coach Tommy Pearce said the offensive struggles were costing his team opportunities throughout the first half and pushed to adjust accordingly in the waning 30 minutes.
“We made a little bit of an offensive adjustment once we saw how they were sliding,” Pearce said. “We were winning some face-offs and then getting turned over, we were failing some clears, having trouble getting the ball from the face off or from the defensive end to the offensive end, and keeping it there long enough to generate shots.”
It only took 55 seconds for the Golden Knights to score again, with graduate student attacker Connor Matthews opening up the second half to widen the lead to 6-3. Bombers’ sophomore midfielder Jack Giannuzzi brought the crowd to its feet with a close flick shot to narrow the deficit to two goals. Both the Bombers and Golden Knights scored three apiece, including Matthews’ third and fourth of the day.
After the back-and-forth, the Bombers pulled off what seemed like an impossible feat. Junior attacker Tim Rogers scored three straight goals, and sophomore midfielder Ethan Adrid tied it up with 20.4 seconds to go. The Bombers then won the faceoff, with Rogers passing it to senior attacker Kyle Proctor, and Kyle passed it to his little brother, sophomore attacker/midfielder Lucas Proctor, who ripped in the game-winning goal, punching their ticket to the Liberty League Championship tournament.
Lucas Proctor said he was emotional, thinking about his magical game-winning goal.
“I can’t even put it into words,” Proctor said. “It’s the whole reason I came here. I was tearing up in the end, [Kyle] was tearing up. It’s surreal. I don’t know if I’ll feel something like that again.”
The Bombers will finish the regular season when they take on the Skidmore College Thoroughbreds at 3 p.m. April 27 in Saratoga Springs, NY.
