Ithaca College’s fall sports season ended in the NCAA Championships, where several Bomber teams made their mark on the national stage.
For the field hockey team, the return to the NCAAs was a trip nearly a quarter century in the making. The Bombers qualified for their first national tournament since 2000 by earning an at-large bid. Once there, they stunned Endicott College with a 3-2 overtime victory on the road before falling to #4-ranked Johns Hopkins in the second round. The postseason win was the program’s first since 1997, and gave the Bombers 15 victories on the season, its most since 1983.
The football team also made it to round two of the NCAA playoffs. After winning their second consecutive Liberty League title, the Bombers topped Springfield 21-7 in the first round. It was the second straight year the Bombers had won an NCAA playoff game, the first time the program had done so since the 1985 and 1986 seasons, under Hall of Fame Head Coach Jim Butterfield.
Also riding a conference title into the postseason was the volleyball program. After sweeping William Smith College in the conference finals, the Bombers swept through the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in similar fashion, defeating both Framingham State University and Babson College three sets to none. The Bombers have now qualified for eight consecutive NCAA Tournaments and have never missed the postseason under Head Coach Johan Dulfer.
In individual NCAA competition, Kyla Eisman ’26 represented the Ithaca College women's cross-country team at the Division III Championships. The sophomore health sciences major was competing in her first-ever championship and finished 137th out of 292 runners with a time of 22:46.9 on the six-kilometer course.
Those results will contribute points to Ithaca College’s overall standing in the NACDA Learfield Director’s Cup competition. The final fall standings will be released on December 22.