Ithaca, RIT Peaking at the Perfect Time
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
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| With Iric Bressler (above) back from an injury, RIT
appears to be peaking as it heads into the Empire 8 conference
tournament this weekend. © RIT Sports Information |
Men's Div. III Conference Tourney
Clearinghouse
The Empire 8 was shaping up to be an easy conference to predict.
Just watch Nazareth and St. John Fisher sprint to the men’s
conference final and see who came out on top.
But a funny thing happened on the way to predictability.
A couple of teams shook off their early-season inconsistencies,
turning the E8 from a two-team horse race into a four-team
toss-up.
RIT had an up-and-down start to the season, leaving them with a
pedestrian, 7-5 record on April 14. Ithaca had a mostly down year,
stumbling to stunning losses against Scranton, Oneonta and Utica,
dropping the Bombers to 3-9 on April 17.
But from that point on, both teams have rattled off four
consecutive wins, including victories over a ranked team. Now both
of these former afterthoughts have found their way into the E8
tournament and could very well meet for the league title –
and the critical automatic qualifying bid to the NCAA tournament -
on May 9.
“We’ve been all over the map in terms of ups and downs
and highs and lows,” said Ithaca coach Jeff Long.
“Right now, the kids seem to be having a lot of fun and
we’re playing some halfway decent lacrosse. The timing seems
to be right. I don’t know what this week is going to bring,
but the last two weeks have been a lot of fun and I hope that
continues.”
“We wanted to make the Empire 8 tournament and our goal is to
win it, so I wouldn’t say we’ve reached our
goal,” said RIT coach Jake Coon. “But the team has
played well and worked hard, and put itself in a good
position.”
For a team with the tradition of Ithaca, this season was perilously
close to being labeled an embarrassment. It was expected there
might be some fall-off from the 14-2 campaign in 2009 considering
the talent that graduated, but a 1-5 start and three times as many
losses as wins?
Long wondered if he was going to lose this team as the whole roof
collapsed in on the program.
“I’m sure we had those doubts midseason this year; we
weren’t sure which path we were going to take,” he
said. “It’s a funny team, so I’m not sure what
path we’ll take this week, but it seems like the energy level
is high and they seem to be into what they’re
doing.”
The turnaround started in an 11-5 loss against Cortland. After
falling behind big in the first half, the Bombers played a strong
second half and seemed to gain confidence playing with the
defending champions. It also recharged the five-man senior class
– Roniel Bencosme, Nick Neuman, Nic Heckman, Nicholas Powers
and Mike Lohan – who called a couple of team meetings to keep
up the momentum.
“I have to credit to all five of those guys,” said
Long. “I’m a firm believer that you only go as far as
your seniors want to go. I put a lot emphasis on senior leadership
and it was wavering there for a little while, but somehow they
figured it out. Those guys are kind of running the show right
now.”
They’ve run the Bombers right into the conference tourney,
where, depending on Tuesday afternoon’s result between St.
John Fisher and Elmira, Ithaca will likely face top-seeded
Fisher.
“I was saying it early in the season: you can never count
Ithaca out of the mix,” said Coon, admiringly. “They
seem to peak at the end of the year.”
For RIT, there was a certain level of inconsistency early on, which
you’d expect with a first-year head coach. Coon, who joined
the Tigers after spending the last four years as an assistant at
UMass, realized there would be some growing pains after the RIT
alums came in during the fall and beat his varisty squad.
“We came in during the fall and revamped everything. The
offense, the clear, the ride, everything. It took a lot of time to
get the guys on the same page. In the fall, I thought we were
sloppy. I knew we had the potential to be very good, but losing to
the alums was a blow to the gut. We were unorganized then. Even
early in the spring I think we needed to work on a lot of stuff,
but I’m hoping we’re peaking at the right
time.”
Stevenson opened the season with a 20-10 defeat of the Tigers and
RPI followed with a 13-12 win to put RIT in an 0-2 hole. Just like
Ithaca, the Tigers found a new level of confidence by playing close
with Cortland.
Like Long, Coon deflects the credit to the players.
“I can’t say enough about the kids,” he said.
“They have really listened and are very coachable and they
work hard. I couldn’t be happier with the group I inherited
in terms of skill and allowing me to be accepted.”
RIT did have a two-game stumble to Ithaca and Fisher, which
coincided with injuries to the Tigers’ two best offensive
players – Iric Bressler and Jordan MacIntosh. It was the only
two games RIT has been held under double-digits and those two
contests were the last ones the Tigers lost.
Just as with Ithaca, it’s now four wins and counting for RIT,
including a win over No. 13 Nazareth last weekend, setting up what
will likely be a rematch of that game on Friday.
Considering the upsets that have already happened in conference
tournaments, the Empire 8 is likely a one-bid conference, so the
intensity level in Upstate New York is going to be ratched up a
couple more notches.
For Ithaca and RIT, however, just having a chance at an
NCAA tournament bid is what they wanted and now they've
got as good a shot as any of the teams at winning the E8.
That’s one of the benefits of peaking at the right time.
“We’re just happy the sun’s coming up and we get
to play for another week,” said Long.
