They’re guys like Austin Blumbergs, who Mearns uses as an example in the program’s recruiting presentation on Zoom. Blumbergs arrived on Olean as a 6-foot, 170-pounder. Two-and-a-half years later, he’s 6-2, 195 pounds, both savvier and a tough cover, as evidenced by his three goals and three assists in the opener.
“We’re all now 25 pounds more of muscle,” Mearns said. “We’re bigger, we’re faster, we’re more experienced, we’re more organized.”
The Bonnies enjoy two of the best assets any college sports program could hope for: Support and geography. St. Bonaventure added men’s lacrosse with the plan to fully fund it over its first four years and delivered. The Bonnies had six scholarships in 2019, added two in both of the last two years and will get to the full complement of 12.6 in this recruiting cycle.
Location helps, too. St. Bonaventure is about 75 miles from Buffalo and well-positioned to create a Canadian pipeline. Mearns, a former star and coach for the Canadian national team, is a logical guy to do just that. The Bonnies’ roster includes nine Canadians, but there are also players from Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin.
It’s also an ambitious group, another major component of developing a program.
“The vast majority of guys on our roster are juniors and sophomores and freshmen, and the end game for them is actually either playing in the National Lacrosse League or now playing in the PLL,” Mearns said. “That’s the goal, and that’s the end game. You have to work on that every day. You have some naysayers that say, ‘You can’t do that,’ but it doesn’t matter what anyone else believes. It matters how much work you’re going to put into that.”
While the chance to celebrate a victory was a first for St. Bonaventure, so was the process of managing a response to that success. The Bonnies’ eight-game schedule against only Metro Atlantic opponents continues Saturday at Detroit, and last week’s victory doesn’t guarantee another.
“It’s one game,” Mearns said. “We have to be prepared for Detroit, and guess what? Detroit also has video of what we just did. So, hey, it isn’t going to be that easy next time, not that it was easy. We want to continue to get better, and we have to continue to evolve. If we’re just going to rest our hats on, ‘We won our first game,’ well, then it’s going to be a long season.”