By the time he was finished with his junior year of high school, Jack Sitzman knew that he wanted his professional future to be in nursing and his immediate future to stay in hockey.
He looked at the new Division 3 program at Anna Maria (Mass.) College and didn’t see a rink on campus or a conference affiliation. But he also didn’t see a roster littered with returning juniors and seniors.
“It being a start-up, I saw it as an opportunity to get a lot of time to play,” said the freshman forward from Redondo Beach, Calif., who is majoring in health science. “There wouldn’t be a lot of juniors and seniors to try and beat out.”
As Anna Maria jumps into the often-unforgiving world of Division 3 hockey, it does so with an eclectic roster, made up almost entirely of freshmen. Each one, like Sitzman, has brought his own motivation and back story to the program, which in its first semester of existence has achieved some notable results.
Playing as an independent team, the AmCats are 4-7-3. Two of the ties came against affiliated teams from New England conferences — Westfield State from the MASCAC and Wentworth from the Commonwealth Coast.
Most of the losses have been competitive — like a season-opening, 4-3 setback to Post, one marred by two goals conceded in the third period; and 4-1 to Conn. College, which was among the preseason favorites in the NESCAC.
“The performance of the team is way beyond expectations,” said athletic director Serge DeBari. “A first-year program, none of these kids having played together before … it’s a feel-good story. It’s quite amazing.”
Maybe what’s most amazing is how quickly things took shape.
Unlike Endicott College, another new-ish Division 3 program that made a big splash when it took the ice for its first NCAA season in 2015-16, Anna Maria was not transitioning from club status. Its program was started from scratch, and there are no plans for a new arena on the 192-acre campus in Paxton, Mass., just outside of Worcester.
“There was a lot of hope of what is possible,” said DeBari, “but there’s nothing in place, no tradition, so you’re rolling the dice, to some extent.”
The first roll was a winner. Dave McCauley (Weymouth, Mass.), who’d coached previously at Babson College and was looking to get back into the college game after several years away, was intrigued by the idea of building a program from the ground up. He and DeBari, who coached basketball for 15 seasons at Babson, and then 10 more at Assumption, had overlapped at Babson briefly.
“The risk factor went down considerably when we hired him,” noted DeBari.
The first debate was whether to start as a club team or jump right into Division 3, which wasn’t really a debate at all.
“Dave was insistent that we go NCAA immediately,” said DeBari. “That he could recruit kids and that would be one of the enticements.”
“I didn’t want to go club,” said McCauley, a standout player at Salem State back in the day, who also has experience coaching high school and juniors. “I knew I could put together a team to be competitive.”
Like Endicott is proving, two things that can contribute to longer-term Division 3 success are a conference affiliation and a home rink.
The second one, there are admittedly no plans for at Anna Maria. The AmCats play and practice at the state-run Daniel S. Horgan Memorial Skating Rink in Auburn, Mass., about 15 minutes away. They have a prime window for practice time (1:30 to 3:30 p.m.) and their own locker room, and could be tenants for a while.
As for an affiliation, there are three New England possibilities (with the exclusive NESCAC not being an option) but none has made an overture.
“We’re trying desperately to get into a conference,” said DeBari. “(Division 3 hockey in) New England is a game of musical chairs and we seem to be the odd one out right now. Some of it may have been skepticism, that we were a fly-by-night operation. We’re way beyond that now.”
The first-year roster is made up of players recruited from Canadian junior teams, USPHL Premier teams and prep schools, among other levels. There are 16 states represented on the roster, plus four foreign countries (Canada, France, Italy and Slovakia). All but four players are freshmen.
“Some kids have done a little better than I thought and some kids haven’t,” said McCauley. “It’s an opportunity to prove themselves.”
Sitzman, who played juniors with the Connecticut Junior Rangers (USPHL Premier) two years ago and the Syracuse Stars (NCDC) last season, is one of the overachievers. He leads the team with 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in 13 games and is playing in all situations.
“I expected a role coming in, but not of this caliber,” said Sitzman. “I didn’t think I’d be just under a point a game. Coach McCauley has been putting me in every possible situation to succeed.”
Classmates Sam Cyr-Ledoux, Pat Manning and Connor McIntosh also are emerging as part of the team’s leadership core. McCauley figures on bringing in another 9-10 players next year, which will ramp up the internal competition even more.
“We’ve done a good job being competitive,” said McCauley. “I think we’re proving ourselves. … We’ve got to get better in our own defensive zone, and that will get better with time.”
DeBari, hired as interim athletic director in 2016, notes it’s not just men’s hockey that’s adding to the excitement on campus. There also are new teams in women’s hockey, women’s lacrosse and equestrian, and students are invited to “ring the bell” outside his office to show school spirit.
“What stands out the most is just how much the school is trying to help us succeed,” said Sitzman. “Every single teacher is super-flexible and the athletic director helps us out a lot. … I’m definitely happy I made this choice.”
