There was always going to be a building process for St. Bonaventure’s budding men’s lacrosse program.

It hired a coach in June 2017. It didn’t take the field until 2019. Its first victory since re-establishing a team didn’t occur until 13 months ago.

The Bonnies, though, are coming fast — and head into April with a 7-2 record.

“There’s a belief that we can do something amazing this year, and it’s a long-term goal and a short-term goal,” coach Randy Mearns said. “Because there’s so many seniors and there’s a number of them that won’t be coming back, they’re running out of time to make this dream happen.”

Simply having seniors —  in the plural form — is a relatively new phenomenon for St. Bonaventure. Over the last three seasons, it had a total of four. This year there are 21 players listed as seniors, guys who learned on the job during a pair of winless seasons and then helped the Bonnies reach the MAAC tournament a year ago.

More than that, St. Bonaventure has depth across the field, something it hasn’t enjoyed much prior to this season. And it has popped up in different ways.

Jake Rosa (19 goals, 14 assists) and Sean Westley (18 goals, 18 assists), mainstays on attack, are now complemented by Jackson Rose. The senior was an extra-man specialist last season but has a team-high 23 goals on just 39 shots this spring.

There’s improvement in the middle of the field, where junior Brady Wijbrandts tied a program record in Saturday’s 15-9 defeat of Manhattan with 10 ground balls. Helping immensely is the addition of freshman Trent Grainger, who won 18 of 24 draws against the Jaspers and has claimed 55.3 percent of his attempts this season.

Considering the Bonnies ranked last nationally in faceoff percentage in 2019 and 2020 and inched up to 59th (out of 65) at 36.7 percent in 2021, it’s a significant boost.

“Unlike specifically the first two years, [when] it was like ‘Are we going to win any faceoffs?’ and ‘Our defense and clearing is going to be our faceoff,’ there’s a feeling and a belief that every faceoff is a winnable faceoff,” Mearns said.

Still, the position where St. Bonaventure stands out the most is goalie. Brett Dobson led the country in save percentage last season at .599, though it didn’t draw much large-scale attention. He has stopped 65.9 percent of the shots on cage this season, and his 8.88 goals-against average ranks third in Division I.

The senior has five games with at least 19 saves, and has averaged 17.3 saves in the Bonnies’ four one-goal victories.

“We kind of joke about it, but it’s really this simple for Brett: Save the ball, clear the ball,” Mearns said. “It’s that simple. Save it. Clear it. That’s obviously very simplistic, but it’s something we say to each other before every game and he’s doing it. He’s having a tremendous year, and I tell everybody that I talk to that I personally believe right now he’s the best goalie in the NCAA. I feel like he’s at that level.”

Skim through the Division I standings, and only four teams — Duke, Jacksonville, Maryland and Rutgers — have more victories than St. Bonaventure. While a few others will join that group this weekend while the Bonnies have a rare April open date, the 7-2 start is something to savor for a program that was 5-24 over the last three seasons.

Still, Mearns knows there is more progress to make if St. Bonaventure is to land its first NCAA tournament berth, starting with an April 9 visit from Monmouth.

“We’re getting some kudos, which is awesome, and we feel like we should embrace that,” Mearns said. “We’ve worked our asses off to get to this point, but we also want to keep our feet on the ground.”