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Success started early for Ithaca and inaugural coach Harriet (Carnes) Marranca. In their second varsity season, the Bombers went 6-3 and recorded a third-place showing at the 1969 Division II Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) championship. A year later Ithaca won the program’s first state title. The 1971 team, which finished as state runner-up, posted wins over Penn State and Pitt.
The Bombers recorded winning records in eight of the next 10 seasons behind top performers like Eleanor “Winky” Ward and Linda Johnson. Ward set school records in the vault and uneven bars and won a state title in the vault. Johnson held the school record in the all-around for four years.
The 1981 team won the program’s second state championship behind individual title-winning performances by Sue Bourne (uneven bars) and Chris Ficken (balance beam). A year later, in Marranca’s last season as head coach, Ithaca placed fifth at the AIAW Eastern Regionals.
Marranca, who compiled a 68-47 dual-meet record, became the first representative of the women’s gymnastics program inducted into Ithaca’s Athletic Hall of Fame when she was enshrined in 1999.
Sarah Jane Clifford and Jamie Winkler, who competed during that era, are among the many Bombers who’ve gone to successful gymnastics careers; both own gyms and have been active in club gymnastics.
In her three seasons as head coach, Jackie DeSalvo led the Bombers to a third-place finish at the regional championship in 1983, a regional title a year later and the program’s first two Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) championships, in 1984 and 1985, starting a streak of four straight ECAC crowns. The 1984 team placed eighth at the NCAA Division II-III championship meet (the Bombers were the only Division III team competing) after posting a school-record eight wins. Sandy Picioccio school records in the vault and all-around that year.
Another Bomber first was attained in 1985 when Ithaca native Lisa Gould (whose career ended after just two years) won the individual title on the uneven bars at the NCAA Division II-III championships; not only was she the program’s first individual national champion he was the first athlete from any Division III school to win an NCAA title at the combined Division II-III meet.
The program’s best years have come under current coach Rick Suddaby. During his 19 seasons Ithaca qualified for the NCGA championships each of the past 18 years and won 10 ECAC titles while finishing third or better at the ECAC meet every year.
In 1986 Picioccio and Cindy Chiolo became Ithaca’s first individual ECAC champions with Picioccio winning the bars, floor exercise and all-around and Chiolo taking gold in the balance beam.
The Bombers made their first appearance at the NCGA championships in 1987 and placed second behind Chiolo’s individual titles in the beam and all-around and Picioccio’s national championship in the uneven bars. A year later Karin Curry won a ECAC championships in the vault and floor exercise. Curry, a 2000 inductee into Ithaca’s Hall of Fame, became the only Bomber to receive the NCGA’s Outstanding Senior Athlete award.
The 1990 team recorded the program’s first undefeated dual-meet record, won the ECAC championship and placed fourth at nationals behind a dominating season by Amy Appler. In her only season of collegiate competition (injuries sidelined her for three seasons) she won ECAC crowns in the vault, floor exercise and all-around and claimed NCGA titles in the floor exercise and all-around. Appler and Chiolo were inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame this fall.
Lindsay-Leigh Bartzel was the team’s dominant performer through the mid-‘90s. A five-time ECAC champion and the 1994 NCGA all-around titlist, she is the only gymnast to win Ithaca’s Iris Carnell Award, which is given to the top female athlete in the senior class.
The class of 1998 – featuring all-Americans Becky Davis, Kathy Kowalski, Alison McClung and Jen Nardone – helped the Bombers to a second-place finish at the 1997 NCGA championship and the program’s first national title a year later. Those teams also featured three-time national champion Lindsey Mazer. Suddaby was named NCGA Coach of the Year after leading Ithaca to the 1998 national championship, earning the award for the second time in his career (he was also honored in 1994).
In the six seasons from 2000 to 2005 the Bombers have won three more ECAC team titles, crowned five individual ECAC champions and eight all-Americans while continuing to rewrite the record book. In 2004 Bomber gymnasts set school records in three of the four individual events and helped Ithaca become the first Division III school to record a team score of 190.00 or higher. The Bombers capped the season with a second-place finish at the NCGA championships.
Updated 2/9/06