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Pat March and John Odierna, Syracuse coordinators, have crossed the country together, recruiting and watching sporting events. They’ve been to NCAA Tournament basketball games in San Diego, Major League Baseball games in Minnesota and Southeastern Conference football championships.

Close friends, right?

“You got to be around people you love to spend time with, and I’m lucky enough to do that with Pat every day,” Odierna said.

But on May 15, 2010, on a 70-degree, sunny, breezy day in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the two were close in a different way. Odierna, a Gettysburg defender, was taking the field against March, a lefty attack for Roanoke, in the Division III NCAA Tournament Second Round. March’s Maroons triumphed in the thrilling 11-10 overtime victory.

Now the two are assistant coaches for No. 5 Syracuse. March has been its offensive coordinator since 2020, while Odierna has been SU’s defensive coordinator since 2024. Before they shared the sidelines on one of the nation’s preeminent college lacrosse programs, they were facing off at the D-III level.

The two faced in the NCAA Tournament again the next year — with March as a Roanoke assistant coach and Odierna in his senior season — and the Maroons advanced again.

They’ve shown D-III players can flourish at the top of the sport, while retaining the roots they planted playing and coaching at that level at SU.

“A lot of times, us poor Division III guys aren’t looked at as being ready for Division I, which is not accurate at all,” said Bill Pilat, March’s Roanoke head coach. “Right away, I knew (March) could succeed at any level he wanted, whether as a high school coach or Division I, II, III.”

At Roanoke, March was named to the All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference First Team and earned United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse D-III All-American Honorable Mention honors. He scored 152 goals and notched 91 assists.

“The tenacity of wanting to score, wanting to go to the goal, not (being) afraid to shoot,” Pilat said of March. “(He) played within the system, did the offense the way we wanted it done and just the intensity that he brought.”

That intensity sometimes went too far. In his junior year, March fainted running up a hill during a team-wide punishment after some players missed a meeting. As March remembers it, he couldn’t get lunch because there was a power outage on campus. While running, Pilat recalled, March went “face down.”

“He didn’t complain,” Pilat said. “He just kept working and running until he passed out. He just couldn’t run anymore.”

Meanwhile, as a three-year starter at Gettysburg, Odierna earned USILA All-America Honorable Mention honors in 2011 after his senior year. Whenever Odierna received the ball, his head coach, Hank Janczyk, felt a wave of relief, certain the Bullets would clear it cleanly.

“Not only was he a good player, he understood the game probably better than most defensemen I’ve ever coached,” said Janczyk, who was Gettysburg’s head coach for 34 years.

Syracuse defensive coordinator John Odierna was a three-year starter at Gettysburg, instilling confidence in longtime head coach Hank Janczyk. Courtesy of SU Athletics

That 2010 NCAA Tournament game pitted two “elite” D-III teams at the time against each other, Odierna said. Odierna wasn’t assigned to defend March all game, but the two recalled matching up multiple times throughout.

“I didn’t really beat him one-on-one too many times,” March said of facing Odierna.

The highlights of that contest are limited and grainy, but you can see March’s Roanoke squad open the game on a three-goal run. On the last one, if you draw your eyes close to the screen, you can make out Gettysburg’s No. 10 — a dejected defender — peering off into the distance.

That was Odierna.

Gettysburg rebounded to push the game to overtime, where Roanoke scored in sudden death.

“We’re on the wrong side of it, which was tough,” Odierna said of the loss. “And we did a lot more scout work on their end, because of their offensive (ability). I knew Coach March would be a tough assignment, so I was just trying to do my part and help us win the game.”

In that game, Odierna broke his stick for the first time all season. SU’s defensive coordinator couldn’t recall the circumstances behind the outburst, and whether or not it was connected to a one-minute slashing penalty he was assessed that day.

March scored two goals that day. If he remembers correctly, they both came in transition on a Roanoke team that liked to push the pace before the shot clock was instituted.

March began his own coaching career the following year at Roanoke. Still needing to complete classes to finish his degree, he joined Pilat’s staff as an assistant coach for the 2011 campaign, saying he always wanted to coach.

“He was just always a student of the game, in the office watching film,” Pilat said. “So I knew it would be an easy transition from that aspect.”

Roanoke and Gettysburg met again at the same stage in 2011. It was one last chance for Odierna to beat the team that had vexed him throughout his college career. But Roanoke hosted the game, and the outcome was ultimately the same. The Maroons secured a 15-9 win, simultaneously ending Gettysburg’s season and Odierna’s playing career.

“We weren’t as competitive as we would have liked to be, unfortunately,” Odierna said. “But maybe that was the Coach March coaching effect.”

After realizing he was “more cerebral than athletic” in college, Odierna launched his own coaching career. He started at D-III’s Colby College in Maine, then went to Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey before moving to D-I Manhattan in 2016.

Through his rise up the divisions, Odierna has relied on many phrases Janczyk said to him. He used to roll his eyes at the sayings, but now understands their meanings. One example: Embrace the mundane.

“Be a master of the things that are boring and take no talent, and that’s just a good life skill,” Odierna said of the saying. “I try to embrace and attack the things that aren’t super exciting. And it allows you to elevate yourself, or separate yourself from other people.”

That philosophy is evident in Odierna’s helming of Syracuse’s man-down defense. Once in the late-2010s, when Odierna was on Manhattan’s staff, Janczyk and some other coaches were having a late-night dinner in Baltimore. Odierna used the salt and pepper shakers to demonstrate his man-down defense. Janczyk, who has the second-most coaching wins in NCAA history, sat amazed as he watched him.

“I was taking notes,” Janczyk said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is a really good idea.’ And I’ve been around a while, and I’ve known a lot of the really good coaches in the country for sure, but I was really taken by his ideas of man down.”

Janczyk adapted that man-down defense until he retired in 2021.

After one year on Pilat’s staff at Roanoke, March moved to D-III Dickinson, then made the jump to D-I at Vermont in 2014 and Princeton in 2017. What’s his biggest takeaway from playing for and working alongside Pilat? Keeping things simple.

“Simple doesn’t get forgotten,” March said. “It doesn’t get messed up, usually. So if you can keep things kind of basic for the guys, they’re able to understand it easily.”

Odierna and March admit they don’t think about their two matchups much. Their memories of that D-III NCAA Tournament contest are fuzzy. However, the lessons learned from playing at that level are clear, and their lasting bond is even clearer.

“The D-III Mafia, if you will, have extra pride, all root for each other,” Odierna said. “It’s a special opportunity to work in a place like Syracuse, but even more so special to work with a friend who also is part of the D-III crew.”

Published on March 26, 2026 at 12:42 am
Contact Nicholas: njalumka@syr.edu | @nalumkal