LEWISTON — After a 40-year career of guiding lacrosse teams to national prominence, including the past 22 at Bates College, Peter Lasagna is retiring as head coach of the Bobcats’ men’s team. The college announced Lasagna’s retirement in a press release Tuesday.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to have led the men’s lacrosse program at Bates for the past two-plus decades,” Lasagna said in the press release. “It’s been a wonderful run filled with forever memories and lifelong friendships throughout the extended Bates lacrosse family.”

Lasagna led the Bobcats to 134 wins, nine appearances in the NESCAC Championship Tournament and two appearances in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

He is a three-time New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Coach of the Year award winner, and he received the Lifetime Service Award from the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association in December 2021.

“Coach Lasagna has been such a valuable member of the Bates community for so long, it’s going to be strange not having him here leading our men’s lacrosse program,” Director of Athletics Jason Fein said in the press release. “On behalf of our entire department, and all of the folks he has positively influenced during his tenure, I’d like to thank coach for all his years of service and I wish him the best in retirement.”

Lasagna’s 17th season (2017) was arguably his finest with the Bobcats, guiding Bates to a 14-0 record to start the year, including a perfect 10-0 mark in the NESCAC regular season. It was the first and only time a NESCAC men’s lacrosse team has ever gone 10-0 in conference play. Bates twice earned a No. 1 Division III weekly ranking that season and the Bobcats made their seventh NESCAC Championship Tournament appearance. Bates went on to advance to the national quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III Tournament, finishing with a 16-2 record.

Following the 2017 season, Lasagna was named the Walter Alessi Man of the Year by the New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (NEILA) and earned the NEILA’s Division III Co-Coach of the Year award.

Only the third men’s lacrosse head coach ever at Bates, Lasagna coached 15 Bates players to U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association All-America honors and two players to the professional level with the Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse.

Lasagna is a 1982 graduate of Brown University, where he spent the first 18 years of his coaching career, including eight as head coach. He compiled a 65-51 record as the Bears’ head coach, including three trips to NCAA Division I Championship Tournaments, including an appearance in the national semifinals in 1994 and the quarterfinals in 1995.

Off the field, Lasagna has also been the back-page columnist for Inside Lacrosse magazine since 2001. In 2002, Lasagna was inducted into the New England Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and in 2011 he was inducted into the Greater Rochester (New York) Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

“From our first recruits, the Class of 2005, to our final recruits, the Class of 2026, we worked to find the best people, students, and athletes that fit Bates and Bates lacrosse while enriching the whole mission of the college,” Lasagna said. “They leave Bates equipped to make positive change.

“My wife Holly and I are both deeply connected to Bates and this community. We look forward to the next chapter together.”

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