A look at the results from mid-March shows that Hofstra lacrosse had a tough couple of games: a 9-8 loss to Johns Hopkins on March 10 followed by a 5-4 loss to Princeton eight days later. But for head coach Seth Tierney, they were losses to two of the nation’s top lacrosse programs and to two of his best friends.

Against Johns Hopkins, Tierney faced off against the school where he spent 10 years, four as a player and six as an assistant coach. Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala was around for nine of those years, three as a teammate and six as head coach, during which the two developed a close friendship.

In the Princeton game, Tierney coached against his uncle, Bill Tierney, a man who Seth, a first-year head coach, describes as his idol. Hofstra lost the game when Princeton scored with eight seconds left to break the 4-4 tie.

When the schedules were released last year, Seth Tierney received calls from Bill Tierney and Pietramala, who both offered to drop their games against Hofstra. They realized the pressure of being a first-year head coach and did not want to add to his stress, particularly after Hofstra lost all but one starter and 70 percent of its offense from last season. But Seth Tierney decided to play both games, realizing his team needed to play prominent programs.

‘I declined pretty quickly,’ Seth Tierney said. ‘And we just lost to both of those teams by one, which really pisses me off. But that’s how it played out.’

Despite winning, the games were also hard on Bill Tierney and Pietramala, who had mixed feelings after beating the Pride. Pietramala said another reason he offered to take the Hofstra game off his schedule was for fear the game would come between him and his former colleague. The two coaches, who were at each other’s weddings, talk multiple times each week, and make sure to either call or text message before each other’s games. Strategy is a common topic, despite coaching different teams.

‘For six years I did (discuss strategy) because our offices were right next to each other and we haven’t stopped since I changed my area code,’ Seth Tierney said.

The night the Hofstra team bus arrived in Baltimore, Pietramala stayed after his team’s meal to greet Seth Tierney in his first trip back to Johns Hopkins as a head coach. On game day, the two sat together and talked while their teams warmed up before taking their respective sidelines.

‘While there is a part of me that says, ‘Yeah, we miss him,’ there’s another part of me that when I look over I’m proud that he is where he is,’ Pietramala said.

Bill Tierney also found himself in a tough spot playing against his nephew, describing it as both a no-win and a no-lose situation for both of them. After the game, Bill Tierney felt winning the game was harder for him than it was for Seth Tierney to lose it.

While an assistant coach at Johns Hopkins, Bill Tierney helped recruit Seth to play there, but left the year before he came to take the head coaching position at Princeton in 1987. Since then, Seth Tierney said his uncle has helped him land assistant coaching jobs at Johns Hopkins and Hofstra, as well as his current job.

The season before Bill Tierney left Johns Hopkins, the Blue Jays won the NCAA Championship. Pietramala was a freshman on that team and developed a close friendship with Bill Tierney that continues today.

Both admit maintaining that friendship has been difficult over the years, particularly since Pietramala became the Johns Hopkins head coach in 2000. For the two coaches, the wedge that often comes between them is recruiting. While building two of the nation’s premiere lacrosse programs, Bill Tierney and Pietramala often cross paths on the recruiting trail and find themselves competing over the same athletes. Bill Tierney said this off-the-field competition can be more divisive than the actual games, but ethics and morals can overcome that.

‘The friendship has got to come first,’ Bill Tierney said. ‘As long as you recruit cleanly, as long as you have no negative stuff to say about the other team or the other school, then wherever the recruit chooses the recruit chooses and you live through it.’

Bill Tierney said that these issues come up routinely because the lacrosse world is small, and many coaches have personal connections.

‘In the grand scheme of things, it’s lacrosse, it’s a game,’ Bill Tierney said. ‘We’re all trying to get our kids the best education we can. We’re all trying to get them to graduate and be better men. And at the end of the day, if you lose a game here and there, that’s the way it goes.’

For Pietramala, as another close friend joins the head coaching ranks, he knows that if his priorities are kept straight, his friendship with Seth Tierney can endure the many seasons he hopes the two of them remain in the head coaching ranks.

‘If you have one friend in life, it’s probably one more than most people,’ Pietramala said. ‘If you’ve got a couple, you certainly want to do everything you can to maintain those friendships and not to change those friendships and have them grow.’

On the rise

After a 2-2 start, Maryland has won its last five, including a win on Saturday over then-No.11 North Carolina. The Terrapins have outscored their opponents by an average of seven goals per game during their streak. But they will have to keep it up if they want to come out successful in their next three games against Virginia, Navy and Johns Hopkins, ranked No. 2, 3 and 5, respectively.

Le Moyne streaks end

Defending NCAA Division II Champion Le Moyne had its 70-game Northeast-10 Conference winning streak snapped at the hands of Bryant on Saturday. The 10-9 loss in overtime also snapped the Dolphins’ 63-game regular season win streak and its 21-game overall win streak.

Published on March 27, 2007 at 12:00 pm