National : In 2nd season, Tierney has Pioneers at highest ranking in program history
When Bill Tierney took over the Denver lacrosse program in 2009, he told his new team exactly what he told his first team at Princeton more than 20 years earlier. Tierney said he wanted to win a national championship, and he believed his team could accomplish that goal.
Princeton had not even won an Ivy League championship in 20 years and was coming off a 3-12 season in 1987. And Denver had just finished its 11th season competing at the Division I level with a 7-8 record. For both programs at the time, the thought of winning a national championship was a pipe dream.
‘They kind of look at you like you have three heads,’ Tierney said. ‘But unless you’re setting those goals very high, they’re never going to achieve anything.’
Tierney admits the goal may have been unrealistic at the first team meeting at Princeton. But after winning six national championships there, he knew anything was possible for his Denver program. The legendary head coach just had to get his team to believe in the dream.
In his second season, Tierney already has the Pioneers (9-2, 4-0 ECAC) moving closer to that goal. Denver’s best start in program history has earned the team its highest-ever national ranking at No. 5 in the Nike/Inside Lacrosse Poll.
But before Tierney could lead Denver to national prominence, he had to leave Princeton. Tierney spent 22 years at Princeton, building the program into a national powerhouse that won 14 Ivy League titles and went to 10 final fours, in addition to the six national championships.
Tierney said he was ready for a change and a new challenge. And Denver provided that challenge. Unlike Princeton in 1987, though, Tierney said Denver had the talent to compete right away.
‘The cupboard was not bare,’ Tierney said. ‘It’s not like we were miracle workers by any stretch.’
Though Tierney inherited a talented group, he still had to take that talent and mold it to fit his system and beliefs. The Pioneers bought into his system in his first year and went on to win the ECAC championship and make the NCAA tournament.
Senior captain and midfielder Andrew Lay said Tierney stressed the importance of playing as a team rather than as individuals. Lay said the team has come together under his disciplined approach.
Lay had known about Tierney and his philosophy long before he played for him. Lay, a Denver native, went to Princeton lacrosse camps during summers as a kid. And he had followed Princeton lacrosse closely throughout his childhood after his older brother’s high school teammate, Christian Cook, went to Princeton to play for Tierney.
Cook was a star defender on three of Tierney’s national championship teams. Lay remembers watching Cook and Princeton in the final four on ESPN and dreaming of playing on that stage one day.
‘You hear professional athletes talking about shooting the last-second buzzer-beater or something like that,’ Lay said. ‘For a high school kid back in those days, it was kind of the same thing. You watched the final four and you want to win a national championship.’
To do that, Lay hoped to play at Syracuse or Princeton or Virginia. But he wasn’t good enough in high school to play at an elite program, so he stayed home in Denver.
And though he didn’t get to play at Princeton, he is now playing for Tierney on a team that could make some noise in the NCAA tournament.
Denver has won six straight games, including a win over defending national champion Duke. The Pioneers’ only two losses came against then-No. 1 Syracuse and current No. 1 Notre Dame.
Tierney said the team’s balance on offense has been the key to its success. Denver has scored in double figures in every win this season. The team currently leads the nation in points per game and ranks fourth in goals per game.
That offense came up big in its breakout 12-9 win over Duke. Assistant coach Trevor Tierney — Bill’s son — said the Duke win showed the lacrosse world Denver is more than just a ‘midrange team’ that could beat teams outside of the Top 10.
‘I don’t think anyone was expecting us to compete with the ACC teams, teams of the higher caliber and the defending national champs,’ Trevor Tierney said.
The Pioneers’ own confidence started to grow last year, with a win over No. 17 Stony Brook in March. But Trevor said the team really began to believe it could compete with the elite teams after beating No. 6 Loyola to win the ECAC championship, clinching a birth in the NCAA tournament.
Trevor said the team was shocked after the win and a little overexcited. Junior attack Mark Matthews said the players dumped water on Tierney and danced around in the locker room after the game to celebrate the big win.
After beating Duke, though, Trevor noticed a different confidence in the team. There was no wild celebration in the locker room. The players were calm and collected and ready to move on to the next game.
‘The biggest difference was last year after the win against Loyola, it was kind of like we had won a national championship, and it was the ECAC championship,’ Trevor said. ‘When we beat Duke, the guys were excited about it, but it wasn’t the biggest thing in the world to them.’
Bill Tierney said he has noticed more parity in college lacrosse. He said on any given day, any team can win. Tierney said the Duke win shows his team can contend nationally, but it still has work to do before it can be considered a top program.
‘I think the win tells our kids that they can do it,’ Tierney said. ‘A bunch more wins will maybe tell us that we are doing it and that will take us into the national tournament.’
