Monday's entry is the first of a series taking a look at each of the seven Division I programs in this state according to their order of finish from last season. This is Mount St. Mary's turn.
Overview: Last season was a shock to the system for the Mountaineers. After winning at least five games in each of the past five years, the program lost its first 14 games before defeating Wagner, 9-6, en route to a 1-15 overall record and a 1-5 mark in the Northeast Conference. Mount St. Mary's finished sixth in the league and sat out the conference tournament for the second consecutive spring, marking the team's first two-year absence from a postseason tournament since 2007-08. The Mountaineers obviously want to jump into the hunt for the Northeast Conference title, but with three-time league tournament champion Bryant, 2014 regular-season titlist St. Joseph's and Hobart improving significantly over the years, the climb to get back into the race is a steep one.
Reason for optimism: In a repeat of last season, the defense figures to be the strength of a youthful Mount St. Mary's squad.
All three close defensemen who garnered the majority of starts – seniors Kyle O'Brien (34 ground balls and 13 caused turnovers), Nick Firman (34 GB, 10 CT) and Alex Stefkovich (22 GB, 9 CT) – are back. Senior Braedon Graham (33 GB, 3 CT), one of two starting short-stick defensive midfielders, is also in the fold.
Junior Brent Tsang (5 GB, 3 CT) is poised to succeed Brett Shukri (41 GB, 17 CT) as the top long-stick midfielder, and fifth-year senior Mike Daly is the leading candidate to replace Kyle McDonough as the other short-stick defensive midfielder.
Mount St. Mary's coach Tom Gravante has left the job of molding the defense to associate head coach and defensive coordinator Tim McIntee, who was the head coach at Manhattan for 15 years and an assistant coach at Dartmouth in 2013 and 2014.
"I'm not worried so much about the defense because that's the more mature part of the team – both physically and mentally," Gravante said. They're just tougher kids."
Reason for pessimism: The Mountaineers ranked 67th out of 67 Division I offenses in scoring, averaging just 5.7 goals last year.
Moving up the ladder could be a difficult proposition as senior attackman Mark Hojnoski, who ranked second on the team with 12 goals, has been sidelined by a strained quad. Junior attackman Bubba Johnson, who paced Mount St. Mary's in both goals (13) and points (20), is back, but he could be joined on the starting unit by sophomore Spencer Smith (two goals in six starts) and freshman Mike Moynihan.
The midfield is a little more stable with senior Clayton Wainer (11 goals and two assists) and sophomore Mike Pascali (8, 6) being joined by junior transfer Justin Gosnell (Harford Community College), but Gravante conceded that there is much work to be done to determine the starting attack and midfield units.
"We're still trying to find where these kids belong, and that's one of the toughest things to do in this game," he said. "Unless you have a 6-4 middie who plays for Duke and can really do whatever he wants – which we don't – we've got to figure it out. … My hope is not to [rotate players too frequently] because I want them to settle in. But it's going to be a process of really finding out where these young men are going to best function."
Keep an eye on: This year's group has 11 true and fifth-year seniors on the roster, which is the same number of veterans on the 2014 squad.
But the current team also boasts 17 freshman, which is five more than the number of rookies on last season's roster. Some of those freshman – notably, defenseman Daniel Barber, midfielder Will Hendrick, goalkeeper Matt Vierheller and Moynihan – could be asked to make an immediate impact.
As pressing as returning to the Northeast Conference tournament is, Gravante understands that there is no fix-it-quick scheme and that the Mountaineers need time to develop. Still, with the season opener on Feb. 14 at Virginia Military Institute just 20 days away, Gravante knows that time is a precious commodity.
"Our game plan is to have this team ready by February 14 when we travel to VMI and play them," he said. "So between now and then, we have work to do. I would like to think that we are better than last year, and I'm confident that we're better than we were last year."
What he said: Gravante has altered the team's schedule, replacing Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Virginia with Furman, Richmond and VMI. The changes will put a dent in the program's strength of schedule, but Gravante said the alterations were necessary to level the playing field for Mount St. Mary's.
"With how this sport has grown and especially financially with the support that some of these teams have and facilities, it's going to be really tough to compete," he said. "That's just the nature of the business. So when kids go through such games that beat them down, their confidence is hurt, and I don't think it's very healthy athletically. I want to rebuild the program and give our guys a chance to compete. I would rather lose in a 9-7 ball game than get smashed 15-1. It's no fun. It's no fun for me or my staff and especially the players. So I have restructured the schedule anticipating that we're going to rebuild and move forward with building more experience and confidence and allowing our guys to compete for 60 minutes."