February 1, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Men's D2: Foxboro or bust for Merrimack

by Mike Zhe/

Attacker Greg Rogowski and Merrimack have big goals this season. (photo: Gil Talbot/Merrimack College)

Attacker Greg Rogowski and Merrimack have big goals this season. (photo: Gil Talbot/Merrimack College)

The burning preseason question in Division 2 is this: What will Merrimack do for an encore?

The Warriors went 12-4 a year ago, ended the year ranked in the top 10, and placed two of their players — attacker Greg Rogowski and goaltender Cory Spinale (Wakefield, Mass.) — on All-America teams.

Of the two teams that finished ahead of them in the Northeast-10, one is gone, as Bryant has moved up to Division 1. In short, there’s some room to achieve great things. And with the NCAA championships held in Foxboro, Mass., again this year, the incentive is especially great.

“(The players) know if we take care of business, we’ll be in our backyard (for the championship game),” said Merrimack second-year coach Mike Morgan, the 2008 NE-10 and NEILA Coach of the Year. “We have a lot of guys from around here. Trust me, they know where it is this year.”

Rogowski led the Warriors for the third straight year with 46 goals and 62 points. Spinale, a junior who was the top goalie in the NE-10 as a sophomore, held foes to 6.85 goals a game and had the league’s second-best save percentage (.666).

Toss in players such as senior defender Michael Miano (Branford, Conn.), who was a preseason All-American a year ago before an injury wiped out his season, and Merrimack has plenty of pieces in place to take aim at a league title.

“We have a lot of veteran leaders and a lot of young guys who are confident,” Morgan said. “I think we’re that good — one of the top teams in the country — and we expect to be in the final four this year, barring injuries, if we play the way we’re supposed to play.”

Of course, the other team that finished ahead of the Warriors — Le Moyne — doesn’t figure to give up the crown easily.

The Dolphins (15-2) came up one win short of a third straight national championship and fourth in five years, falling 16-11 to NYIT in the title game. Their defense allowed just 3.94 goals and figures to be similarly stingy this year.

“There’s Le Moyne and then there’s Merrimack and then you can go from No. 3 to No. 7 and it’s a real battle in there,” Saint Anselm coach Rick Senatore said. “We’ve had pretty good success among those teams in the past couple years. We hope to be able to maintain what we’re doing there and maybe give those other two teams a scare.”

Saint Anselm returns much of its offensive core, with three of its top four scorers back. Senior attacker Chris Murphy (Winchester, Mass.) put up 34 goals and 50 points. Playmaker Matt O’Connell (Charlestown, Mass.), with 32 assists, and middie Matt Surette (Wakefield, Mass.), who had 28 goals, are the other top threats.

Senatore is hoping a good freshman class can bolster the program’s overall talent level.

“We don’t have a tremendous amount of depth,” he said. “It’s when you get to our secondary guys that the freshmen could make a difference for us.”

The league’s other Manchester, N.H., team, Southern New Hampshire, also is looking to make some noise after going 5-7 in 2008, and sophomore attacker Mike Ball (Salem, N.H.) is a big reason for that. With 55 goals as a freshman, he led Division 2 in goals per game.

Ball, along with faceoff specialist Gary McKay (Billerica, Mass.), who won 65 percent of his draws, were named preseason All-Americans. The Penmen lost just four seniors from last year’s team.

Attack Kevin Gould (Duxbury, Mass.) had 23 goals and 40 points last year for Bentley, and defender Matt Allen (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) led a defense that allowed fewer than eight goals a game.

Saint Michael’s (8-7) has some rebuilding, after losing top snipers Mike Boerma (Concord, Mass.) and Greg Lazarus to graduation, as well as top defender Kevin Simmons.

Other New England teams hoping to make strides are Assumption (4-11), Franklin Pierce (2-12) and AIC (1-10).

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