On their first day of practice last week, members of the Merrimack College men's lacrosse team crisscrossed the field in North Andover, flinging precise passes to each other as clouds of steam from their breath hung in the cold air. It was just a few minutes into the 2020 season, but there were clearly high expectations for the reigning back-to-back national champions of the NCAA's Division II: drop a pass and you take a lap as penance.
For Head Coach Mike Morgan, who has two 40-pound trophies proudly planted on the top of a shelf in his office like deer heads mounted to a wall, the significance of the upcoming campaign can’t be overstated.
“I’ve said it to our guys: You take nothing away from those two trophies and two national championships, [but this is] the biggest season in the history of this program," Morgan said.
It's not because the Warriors are looking to three-peat. In fact, for the next four seasons, they can’t even qualify for the national tournament, no matter what their record is.
That’s because Merrimack College is in its first year of transitioning to Division I. What happens on this maiden voyage into the college big leagues could set the tone for men’s lacrosse — and the school — for a long time. Proving it belongs in the top rung of college athletics is just Merrimack's next step in catching the attention of prospective students and their parents in the crowded and competitive world of college marketing.
“If we’re gonna be where I think we can be in Division I, if we come in this first year and we prove ourselves and do well and have a great record and draw a lot of eyes, I think it sets us up from a reputation standpoint, respect standpoint, recruiting for the next 15 years," he said.
The same could be said for the athletics department and Merrimack's quest to keep attracting a steady flow of new students.
Sports have been a part this once-small school, tucked away into the woods of the Merrimack Valley, since the Catholic college's founding in 1947. For many years, it has competed in Division II, with the Division I hockey teams being the exception. Making a full move to Division I has been a part of the conversation since well before Director of Athletics Jeremy Gibson started in 2013.
“The campus has evolved; the enrollment has evolved," Gibson told WGBH News. "Division I seemed like a very natural progression from an institutional standpoint, and also a real opportunity from an institutional standpoint, to help expand the brand of Merrimack College and the reach of Merrimack College.”
The transition into a new conference, the Northeast Conference, with members' schools in large markets like New York City and Philadelphia, could help reach those goals.
Merrimack has four team national championships under its belt in Division II: two in men’s lacrosse, one in softball and one in men’s hockey before it moved to Division I. Clearly, the Warriors' athletic system isn’t broken at this level. So why make the jump?
Part of the answer lies in the shifts in trends in college demographics. As the number of high school graduates in the Northeast shrinks, some small institutions have struggled to keep their doors open.
The opposite is true at Merrimack, which currently boasts about 4,000 total undergraduates — around double its number from just 10 years ago.
“Merrimack is by no means a small college anymore," Gibson said. "It’s been thriving at a time when other schools in higher education are struggling with enrollments, and our enrollments have been booming.”
Moving to Division I provides more opportunities to reach prospective students. Gibson said it's a piece of the school's strategy to continue its current enrollment trend.
“But I think it goes beyond that. It’s about creating opportunities for people to engage with Merrimack in different ways," he said. "And that can be by seeing a broadcast on television, it can be by seeing the scroll on the ticker on ESPN. It can be by some of the other programs that we’ve partnered with just to get people on our campus.”
Getting people into seats is something the move to Division I has helped with: over 10,000 people showed up to the homecoming football game this fall.
But with the bigger crowds has come bigger competition for all the teams at Merrimack.
There’s already been games where women’s basketball Head Coach Monique LeBlanc has done double-takes at the size of new opponents.
“I’m 5'11" with no shoes on and on game day I’m wearing heels, so now I’m up around 6'1." And I’m walking on the court, and everybody is my size. That’s not how it used to be,” she said with a chuckle. “There’s been a couple of games where we’ve been playing a kid and I’ve known from the scouting report that, ‘Ok, they’ve got a 6'3" center and a 6'2" starting forward.’ And I walk out there and I’m like, ‘There’s no way she’s 6'3," she’s gotta be 6'5"!’ I mean, they’re big, you know? And I think that’s different.”
LeBlanc said being Division I allows her to make a different pitch to prospective student-athletes who are interested in playing at the highest level.
Some Merrimack teams so far have held their own, for the most part, against this new class of competition. Men’s soccer won the regular season conference title in the fall. On the other hand, the volleyball team only won one game in its first season at the new level.
The new competition gives a bigger platform for all of Merrimack's athletes. For women’s basketball senior Denia Davis-Stewart, having the chance to play in Division I is a a big step toward her personal goal of playing pro ball.
“That’s another thing I was excited about," she said. "Just being able, like I said, to showcase my abilities and my talent. I think Division I has definitely offered a lot of exposure.”
Men’s lacrosse junior Christian Thomas was there for all the highs of his team's repeat championship runs. Now he’s looking forward to this new challenge in maybe the biggest year in team history.
“We’re going to be playing some of the top teams in the country. And just going out everyday, knowing we have something to prove, is pretty special," he said.
Like other teams in the department, men's lacrosse will be facing big names like the University of Michigan and Yale University this season. In its first game of the season, the women's basketball team beat the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The only thing left is to capture a Division I national championship trophy to match the school's already impressive collection.
"Wouldn't that be fun?" Gibson asked. "You know, that's an aspirational goal. ... Hopefully we can leverage some of this early success to have future recruits realize that Merrimack is a place that you can go get a great education and be competitive from an athletic standpoint, and we'll hopefully create that snowball effect and just continue to raise the level of what we're doing here."
