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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 26, 2019

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Merrimack - 16, Limestone - 8

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. We are joined by Merrimack head coach Mike Morgan and by student-athletes, Michael O'Connell, Nick Ponte and Charlie Bertrand. First we are going to take questions for the student-athletes. After that, we will dismiss the athletes to the locker room and open it up for Coach. First an opening statement from Coach.

MIKE MORGAN: To be here with these guys, part of the reason we won this, guys like this held it together throughout the season. You know, you don't see it from the outside but we had a lot of adversity early on, fighting complacency, fighting injuries, developing captains and leaders. We are such a young team. Mike is the only true senior that won't be back next year that stepped on the field today.

So you know, it was a rough go. Our guys talked about trust in pregame, and they did. They trusted us as a staff; they trusted these guys as leaders. When you go through what we went through, had to lose some tough games, come back and then go on the road as the sixth seed and go beat teams that are our rivals, you know, then Mercyhurst, who is obviously tough at home, and then to come here and avenge 2017, it's definitely a sweet ending. These guys wrote their story, and that's what it comes down to. And it's one of those things, there have only been five teams that have gone back-to-back in Division II, so for us and for these guys, it's certainly impressive.

Q. Charlie, the offense late in the second quarter when you guys went on that run, can you talk about the fluidity and what you guys were seeing there?
CHARLIE BERTRAND: Yeah, I mean, Davis has come a long ways this season. He picked it up in the second quarter Cronin there at the face-offs, and he got us the ball, and when we get touches, we find a lot of different looks, and we were attacking from different places and keeping defense on their heels and sharing the ball, playing as a team like we have all year, so really opened up in the second quarter.

Q. Michael, you guys obviously as a program now are moving on to DI. How if at all about the urgency or impetus of that last game in DII did that play a role in motivating some things for you guys? If so yes, if not why?
MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I don't really think it changed too much for us. We play at a very high caliber. We're a very talented team, I think, top to bottom. Bottom of the roster pushed the top of the roster, and we kind of embraced it was the last game in Division II for myself as a senior but also for the rest of the team.

It was our last time to get back at Le Moyne and Adelphi, the teams that beat us in the regular season, avenge our losses to them, and then kind of just end on a high note for Division II and then move on to Division I. I know these guys are going to do great things next year. Coach Morgan has a great foundation for what he expects from the team, it's at a DI level, so I think the transition is going to be smooth for the team next year.

Q. Charlie, you guys were up 10-7 and had that four-goal run by Limestone to close out the third quarter and you scored two goals to kind of start that run in the fourth quarter. Take me through that, speaking of the fourth quarter.
CHARLIE BERTRAND: The story of this team the whole year is just that we have been battling adversity. We have gone through a lot of stuff that's built us as a team, and when Limestone went on that run, we knew we had to just do the same thing we have been doing, stick to what makes us good, play as a team and play together, just like we did in the couple other NCAA games. If you go down a few goals, you just keep playing, you don't want to go out of your role.

Q. Nick, what was the attitude or kind of the mood when they went on their run, and what did you feel like pulled you guys out of that?
NICK PONTE: I mean lacrosse is kind of a game of runs for us, and we know, talk about it all the time, weathering the storm. I'm going to get scored on; it's gonna happen, it's lacrosse. We know we've just gotta grind it out, and then the offense is gonna take care of it once we get Chuckie the ball. That's really all I got for that.

Q. At the end of the game, Thomas kind of ran with the ball and while everyone ran over to the corner, he ran to the sideline. Did he give you the ball?
MIKE MORGAN: Yeah, the Thomas brothers it's become a tradition. They somehow always have the ball at the end of these big games, so Christian came running over and handed me the ball. It symbolizes the end of Division II, the end of this run. And we obviously go on to DI, great opportunities and we're optimistic about that and new challenges. But yeah, he had the ball to run it out, and instead of throwing it in the air, he ran it over to make sure we had it.

Those guys, the fact they always have the ball in the spots is important, because they're both mentally and physically tough. We want them closing it out.

Q. Do you have it, still?
MIKE MORGAN: It's in my bag, yeah. It will be on the desk in some sort of case, I'm sure.

Q. Tow years ago against these guys, face-offs were a big factor in the other direction. Can you talk about how important was it for Davis to keep the ball for you guys?
MIKE MORGAN: Davis was awesome. He's been a guy -- it's funny, he's almost a microcosm of our team. He kind of started slow and was trying to find his confidence, went through little adversities here and there, got injured, and all of the sudden when he got going, you see what he can do.

The kid is great. He's incredible, and I think he kind of just is in line with our season. He's a guy that coming in here, you know it's going to be a tight game if you can have the face-off battle. It was, what do we got? 18-27, that's a monster day. That's about where I thought he would be, probably even a little better. So to get that offense the ball and keep Limestone's offense off the field as much as possible, I thought our again was incredible today as well as. That's a really good offense. You have to win the middle field, win face-offs to maximize your potential on offense and keep it out of their hands.

Q. Coach, you had eight guys score in this game. You have seven guys on your roster with 20 goals or more, nine guys with double digit point totals. Talk about the depth of this team and how it helped you get here.
MIKE MORGAN: Yeah, I mean, that's one thing we have seen, we have a lot of depth, and guys that have been sitting behind the middies from last year and some of the other guys have now started to show themselves. I thought Tyler had a good game, Hailey with a big shot, Max Morrill had a great feed early. These guys are freshmen, they're 18 years old. It almost sounds like last year's press conferences, when I was talking about is Christian and Sean and those guys, and even Charlie, but they're fearless.

They feed off the confidence of the leaders. We're sharing the ball, and everybody is scoring, Chuck gets a lot of press as he should, but it's a special group. When they play together they're tough to stop.

Q. Coach, with the expansion of the DII tournament to 12 teams, in a different year you guys might not have even gotten in. So mindful of that and the road traveled with going to Le Moyne all of the other places, how did that fuel this year's run, mindful of just exactly that. It was a sixth seed in the north, and I'm not the one to say whether that's deserving or not but how did that factor in?
MIKE MORGAN: Yeah, I thought we had a good resume and we ended up the sixth, and I think it's probably the best thing that ever happened to us. At the end of the day, this is a group that I think needs to be challenged, wants to be challenged. When they saw the six, whether it was deserving or not, their mindset was, okay, here we go.

I think that's where the whole "six train" came from and all that, that took on a life of its own. We're at a point now where you go out to Mercyhurst, and I said this to someone the other night, it's just really poetic how this thing played out. You go out to Mercyhurst where we've never played "hurst" and they're one of the top teams in Division II for the last 25 years. We've just never ran into each other.

Then your Assistant AD is the AD there as well, so it's kind of a weird circumstance. Then you go down to Adelphi where we lost by nine, to go avenge that with one of your two rivals in the conference. And then we've got to go up to La Moyne and we split with one goal wins each, regular season, conference tournament. Then we go there and we beat our other rival on a wild last 25 seconds to win in OT to come here, and then you get to avenge 2017 on a team that beat you.

So it's just a weirdly poetic road, and I said to the guys before, like we said, you guys are writing the story. This is the end, so you write it how you want it. They did. This season will go down as something special. Last year a lot of things broke our way last year, and not that it wasn't sweet, but when you win by kind of what we won by last year, things broke your way, it's the first time, so you're excited but I felt like we earned this year, really earned this year.

These guys didn't quit from day one. We were tough on them, really tough on them, and I think they just kept plugging along, like these guys said, and here we are.

Q. Coach, you got that nice trophy to the left of you, but as you guys leave Division II what are some of the lessons and things you have learned along the way that you might want take over to DI in the fall.
MIKE MORGAN: Yeah, we have always been built on hard work, selflessness, confidence, I mean our guys and our staff are all very much that. Our level is middle, middle high Division I already, I believe already, so I don't think we're changing much in terms of the structure, but the quality and what made us good in DII will certainly be what make us good in DI.

You have to have guys that are bought into what you're doing, bought into loving the program, the school, and being hard working. That doesn't change in Division I. You will see better competition. But for us it's knowing you've got to work, you've got to grind. We got a team that just grinded their way all the way to a national championship as a sixth seed. On the road four times, count today as a road.

So it's like at the end of the day, we've been running this thing for the last eight or nine years with a Division I model, so for us, it's taking the good qualities of DII but also knowing that there are some opportunities when we move to DI with the type of teams we will be playing and the publicity and whatnot.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. Congratulations.

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