Bullets Hoping to Cap Off Revenge Tour
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
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| Tom O'Donnell (above) and the Bullets have avenged two
of their three regular season losses already. The team that handed
Gettysburg its third loss - Cortland - awaits in Foxboro on
Sunday. © David Sinclair |
The Bullets were feeling good.
Gettysburg had just upended then-top ranked Salisbury, 11-10 on the
road in late March, upping its record to 6-3. And while the amount
of losses was atypical of most Bullets seasons to that point, it
was a long way from the 2-3 record of a few weeks earlier.
Predictably, the Gettysburg squad was exhilarated with the win.
Hank Janczyk, the program's coach for the past 22 years, walked
back to the team bus among his celebrating players, smiling at the
jubilation. And then he happened to overhear a nearby
conversation.
"I heard a couple of our players say it would be great to go after
the teams that beat us," said Janczyk on Tuesday. "At that point in
time I was thinking, ‘Holy crow! Be careful what you wish
for.'"
As big a high as the Bullets were riding after beating the Gulls,
Janczyk was in no hurry to replay the three opponents that beat
them - No. 8 Haverford, No. 3 Cortland and No. 1 Stevenson. His
team was improving, but perhaps not to the point of tackling that
trio, which had defeated the Bullets by an average of nearly seven
goals.
The players, however, felt they had leaped a hurdle by downing the
defending champs.
The improvement from the start of the season to the Salisbury game
was brought about by a fundamental change in how the team operated.
Any leftover complacency or entitlement that might have been the
product of the program's past successes was stripped away.
Gettysburg was going to play as underdogs, constantly trying to
prove itself.
"I think I heard it from Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, who said
expectations kill. And I think he's right," said Janczyk. "If you
have expectations, you think you can just show up and it'll be
easy. It's never easy."
The team, led by a solid senior class, took Janczyk's lead.
"All the seniors came together and decided that we needed to run
this program with the respect that it deserves," said Yanni Peary,
a senior defender and co-captain. "We didn't want to be that class
that ruined the tradition we've compiled in the past. So we changed
the little things. Like picking up balls after practice, making
sure everyone is to team meetings on time, and taking your hats off
at meetings."
"We weren't going to blame anybody, but we were going to make
changes," added Janczyk. "We were going to take a look at how we
dressed, how we acted, how we practiced. What kind of attention
levels and energy levels did we have at practice? And we got back
to fundamentals.
"We just tried to take it from there and attempt to get better
incrementally and I think that is what's happening. It was no magic
thing; it was a day-by-day process."
Instituting a back-to-basics mindset was a big change for the
players, but Janczyk's refusal to single out any player or unit as
the root of the problem was critical. One of the first things the
coach did after the slow start was stand up in front of his players
and apologize to them for not adapting quick enough to his team's
personnel.
Seeing their coach accept some accountability opened the door for
the players to do the same, and raise their game.
"The best thing about it is no one pointed fingers," said Peary.
"We were all able to tailor our games to make sure we became
successful as a team. Everyone found out what they could do
better."
The Bullets did get better, and started their tour of revenge.
After the Salisbury win, Gettysburg won five more games, pushing
their consecutive win streak to nine games and earning the second
seed in the Centennial Conference. A win over Washington College in
the semifinals set up a rematch with Haverford.
Using an 8-0 run bridging the second, third and fourth quarters,
the Bullets rolled past the Black Squirrels, 12-5, replacing their
8-4 loss in March.
Wins over Washington & Lee and Denison in the second round and
quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament created a second opportunity
to avenge a loss, as Stevenson awaited them in the national
semifinals. A far different team that lost to the Mustangs 16-6
early in the season, Gettysburg handled Stevenson, leaving the
field with a 12-7 triumph.
Now all that is left is Cortland - a team that cruised past the
Bullets on March 7, 14-8 - on Sunday in Foxboro.
"We managed to beat Haverford and a very good Stevenson team, so
having a shot at beating Cortland for a national championship is
exactly how it should be," said Peary.
Even Janczyk is no longer counseling his players to be careful what
they wish for.
"Now it seems like the right thing," he said. "If we're going to be
the best team in the country, it's the right thing that we play the
teams that beat us."
