Fourteen players — including top scorer Katie Meinecke and 10 other players who started games for Dowling during its 17-4 campaign — followed Handras. So did two previously signed recruits.
“We wanted to stick together because we’ve built this from the ground up and we went so far last year,” said senior goalie and captain Lauren Young, who earned first team all-conference honors in 2016. “For us to really finish it out together would be the best thing. When Coach contacted us, we all basically jumped on it.”
Upon being hired, Handras invited her Dowling team to campus to meet with Bailey, administrators and counselors to get a better understanding of the school and look into potential new majors, since NYIT didn’t offer education like Dowling.
However, she still encouraged her players to look elsewhere if they desired. Handras, who also coached soccer at Dowling, received many emails from interested coaches — including East Coast Conference rivals — joking her phone nearly broke.
“I said, ‘Don’t sell yourselves short. You are worth something to somebody,’” Handras said. “[But] they were waiting on me and saying, ‘If this is what’s going to happen, we want to be there and be a part of it.’”
NYIT invested $475,000 in its women’s lacrosse program, with approximately $320,000 allotted from its scholarship pool. The Bears will compete in the ECC, the same conference Dowling played in. With that built-in chemistry and familiarity, Bailey expects NYIT to be competitive immediately.
“We’re going to practice like we did over there — just with a new name,” Handras said. “New name, new field. Same rules, same expectations.”