Frostburg State men's lacrosse coach Tommy Pearce didn't hesitate when asked if the team's 14-9 victory over No. 16 Washington College on Saturday was the greatest win in the program's history since its restart in 2011.
"It's the first time we've ever beaten a top 20 opponent. So I would say that for now, it is," Pearce said Monday morning. "But we know that we've got the [Capital Athletic Conference] schedule coming up, and a good out-of-conference win can only help you so much. At the end of the year, you need to finish strong in your conference. If you don't win your conference, you hope you have some good wins to help your resume out. If you have a win like that and do a great job in the conference, it can only help you. So we're obviously really happy to get it, but right away, we wanted to keep everything in perspective and think about what that does for us with 13 games left to play."
Off to their second 4-0 start in as many years, the Bobcats are keeping things in perspective. They still have to wade through the conference where No. 6 York (2-2), No. 12 Salisbury (2-3) and Christopher Newport (3-1) loom as potential roadblocks to the league championship and an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.
"Beating Washington College is great, and you hope that helps you at the end of the season," Pearce said. "But there's so much left to play, there's so much left to play out over the course of the season."
Frostburg State won't have much time to bask in Saturday's achievement. The team will play host to Illinois Wesleyan (1-2) on Monday at 4 p.m., and Pearce said he's fine with the players leaving behind their memory of defeating the Shoremen (1-3) and turning their attention to the Titans.
"We told our guys that we don't want to have big highs and really low lows," he said. "Saturday was great, and we took it for what it was worth. But we were in a classroom this morning at 7 a.m. doing film and scouting work, and it's back to work."