Frank Fedorjaka learned earlier than just about anyone in college lacrosse what playing in a pandemic would be like.

The Bucknell coach saw his team’s game scheduled for March 7, 2020, at Boston University pushed back a day multiple times as the Terriers dealt with multiple illnesses within their program, a flurry of primitive COVID-19 tests that took two or three days to produce results and increasing demands from cautious university administrators.

The game was never played, and the season was canceled within a week. So when Bucknell had games against four different opponents over three weekends canceled early this season, Fedorjaka had a familiar feeling.

“It was just like last year’s Boston game,” he said. “We’re supposed to play. Maybe we’ll play, maybe not. We’ll postpone it; maybe we will, maybe we won’t. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least. It has been very challenging, but at the same time, it’s shown how resilient our guys have been in the face of all this adversity.”

The wait finally ended with Sunday’s hastily arranged 15-9 defeat of Cleveland State, but the Bison went through quite the process to get there. Like most teams, they didn’t play a preseason scrimmage. Most of their non-conference slate was scrapped. They didn’t even get in intrasquad scrimmages because of various on-campus pauses.

Then the opener against Robert Morris was postponed due to a university-wide pause. With Fedorjaka unable to guarantee the Bison would be able to play Colgate on Feb. 27, the Raiders scheduled Albany for that weekend. There was a brief attempt to slot in a game against Delaware, but another campus pause dashed those hopes.

“I said, ‘All right, we lost the first game, but we’ll be back next week, so just take it one week at a time. Don’t worry about that. it’s just a setup for something greater. It’s not a setback, it’s a setup for something greater,’” Fedorjaka said. “You can only say that for so long.”

Last weekend opened, too, when Navy postponed the teams’ Patriot League opener when the academy issued a restriction of order movement. Fedorjaka then set up the game with Cleveland State, though his players were initially a little wary of the news.

“They were really excited, but it was interesting that they weren’t as excited as I thought,” Fedorjaka said. “It didn’t matter who the opponent was. I think they were just a little reserved because it’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s what you’re saying today. That’s great, Coach.’ I honestly feel like that was in the back of their minds, but on Sunday morning and Sunday at noon, you could tell they were ready to go.”

It showed. While there was understandable sloppiness, the Bison never trailed and built a 10-goal lead over the Vikings. Bucknell broke out its traditional 10-man ride, which helped the Bison force 18 of Cleveland State’s 25 turnovers.

Tommy Sopko had seven goals and two assists for the Bison, the second consecutive game Bucknell has received at least a nine-point effort. That’s a dream scenario for a coach, with one caveat: The first performance in that sequence, Will Yorke’s nine goals and two assists against Marist, occurred Feb. 29, 2020.

In the interim, as Fedorjaka noted, it was the opposite of time flying when you’re having fun. But at long last, Bucknell was back on Sunday.

“It worked out perfectly for us,” said Fedorjaka, whose team plays host to Lehigh on Sunday. “We played well, but we still know we have a lot of work to do. Sometimes, losing a game is good for a team, but when you haven’t played for 373 days, it wouldn’t have been good for us to lose.”