Men's Scoop: Unfinished Bomber Business
by Jac Coyne |
Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive |
Twitter
It should have been enough.
|
| In any other year, Ithaca's 14-2 record would have been
good enough for a tourney bid, but not in 2009. But even with
one of the youngest teams in Jeff Long's 23 years, Nick Neuman
(above) and the Bombers are expecting to take the committee out of
the selection process by winning the Empire 8 this
spring. © Ithaca Sports Info |
With a 14-2 record, including an 11-8 road victory over then-No.
2 Cortland and wins over nationally-ranked St. John Fisher,
Nazareth and Stevens, Ithaca should have been a lock for the NCAA
tournament.
Yes, they lost in overtime to Naz in the Empire 8 semifinals, but
not since 1997 when a nascent Middlebury team was left out of the
tourney with a 9-2 record, has a team from a power conference with
only two losses been excluded from the dance.
Before the Ithaca team gathered for what would end up being the
final meeting of the season on Selection Sunday, Nic Heckman
started getting a queasy feeling as the dark clouds of the perfect
storm that would eventually keep them out of the tourney
gathered.
Washington & Lee bounced undefeated and No. 1 Roanoke in the
ODAC tourney, eliminating one Pool C bid. Wesleyan snuck past both
Middlebury and Tufts in the NESCAC tournament to grab the AQ and
burn two more of the at-large berths. With Stevenson having a
fourth locked down after it lost in the finals of the CAC tourney,
it was the Bombers against Haverford for the final bid.
"It didn't look good, but we still thought we were getting in,"
said Heckman, a senior midfielder for the Bombers this year.
As the broadcast finished with Ithaca left on the outside looking
in, the emotions on the team ran the gamut: frustration, anger,
sadness and, ultimately, responsibility.
"It really rested on our shoulders," said Jeff Long, Ithaca's
23-year head coach and recent inductee into the US Lacrosse Hall of
Fame. "We didn't take care of business on the day we needed to take
care of business."
Before the team filed out to stew about the decision, members of
the Bombers' soon-to-be-graduating senior class laid down the
gauntlet to the underclassmen. They challenged the returners to
make sure the squad was not sitting in this same situation in
2010.
"They told us how much talent they thought we had and they
motivated us to keep working despite this little let down that we
had," remembered Nick Neuman, another senior midfielder. "Neth
Wiedemann, one of our captains, singled out one player from each
class and just talked about how much potential they had, how much
he loved playing with them, and how well we could do this
season."
As the Bombers gear up for the 2010 season, they hope to give last
year's seniors a small measure of satisfaction by making sure there
are no doubts when the committee makes its selection this May. The
players are focusing all of their energy on making sure it's Ithaca
holding the Empire 8 trophy and the accompanying Pool A bid.
Is this something that Long and the Bombers' staff want them to
keep in mind?
"I would hope so because we certainly bring it up enough," laughed
Long. "We don't want to forget about that because it's certainly
not fun when you're not playing at that time of year. You don't
want to forget it altogether, but we need to move forward. We need
to use last year to help us move forward."
The Bombers will be moving forward, but at a methodical pace. Long
says this is the most inexperienced team he's had in quite a while
with just six seniors on the 36-man roster. Despite
the frustrations that callow teams can bring, the coach
is definitely enjoying this youth movement.
"It's fun seeing the kids come back a little better and seeing the
kids develop," said Long.
For their part, the players are utilizing last year's setback as
motivation.
"Definitely during the winter months I saw a lot more players
lifting weights, running sprints, shooting, and playing wall ball
than I've ever seen before," said Neuman. "It was really cool to go
to the gym and see 15 guys all doing something different."
Fortunately for Ithaca, the players don't need to be humming on all
cylinders from the start. They just need steady improvement in
order to peak at the optimum time. With another challenging
schedule, the Bombers are unlikely to have the record necessary to
harbor any secretive at-large dreams.
So it'll be Empire 8 championship or bust.
"I think that's what you have to do, and I think it will get more
like that with the new teams and the new leagues and the AQs being
added to the [NCAA] tournament," said Long. "You can't really
plan on the Pool C; it's just not safe and it's never worked out
for us. You have to concentrate on the league games and the
tournament at the end of the year."
An Empire 8 title won't salve all the wounds left from last
spring's snub, but it will go a long way for the Class of 2009 and
the program as a whole.
"I'm sure it will be satisfying for [last year's] seniors to see us
do well, but obviously they'll still have regrets," said Neuman.
"Just putting Ithaca's name back on top will be a big thing."
Slides & Rides
- The Empire 8 is shaping up to be the most competitive
conference in the country at this point. There are five teams -
Ithaca, Nazareth, RIT, St. John Fisher and Stevens - that I could
see finishing with the conference crown. As even as the playing
field might be within the league, that may not translate into one
of the five Pool C bids.
- Men's Division III starts its slow ramp up to the Feb. 27
blowout this weekend with a handful of games. The Midwest
Lacrosse Conference kicks off its existence when Carthage and
Albion play a neutral site game in Michigan while several Capital
Athletic Conference teams - Mary Washington vs. Virginia Wesleyan;
York at Roanoke; Salisbury at Greensboro - commence the season
(weather pending).
- In response to my article on John Haus, Lebanon Valley's new
coach, Don Engle (LVC '71) wanted to clarify that LVC had a men's
lacrosse program starting in 1966. Bill and Bob McHenry, former
players at W&L, started the LVC team and helped the Dutchmen
win the Mid Atlantic Conference and finish with an 8-1 record (only
loss to Bucknell) in 1969.
