FOXBOROUGH, MASS - A dominant performance on all sides of the ball brought Merrimack its first title in program history on Sunday.

The Warriors played a perfect game defensively, at the faceoff dot, on the ground, and in net. 

But, as was the case all season, it was the offense that put the opposition in a hole it couldn’t climb out of in the Warriors’ 23-6  national title win against Saint Leo.

“Our guys played as well as you could play, and fought as hard as you could fight,” said Warriors coach Mike Morgan. “I told them in the locker room, I couldn't imagine a group that I'd want to have a National Championship more than these guys.”

The Warriors offense powered past teams all season long, including a 24-6 blowout victory over NYIT in the first round. On Sunday, the results were eerily similar.

Behind three goals and seven assists from freshman Christian Thomas, the young guns of Merrimack had one of their best offensive outputs of the season. 

It was good timing for an offensive explosion, but it was also just the norm for the Warriors. With seven wins of a 10-goal margin or more, the Merrimack offense clicked all season as if they had played together forever.

“It's happened throughout the entire playoffs,” said senior Hunter Schmell. “It happened in the [NYIT] game. It happened at the Seton Hill game. We go on runs and win in the middle of the field. It was no different today.”

Except, for most of the offense, this season was the first time they had stepped foot on the same field. 

The underclassmen trio of Sean Black, Christian Thomas, and Charlie Bertrand were the starting attack all season for the Warriors, creating the bulk of their offense and working in sync like a group of seniors.

Bertrand was on the big stage before when Merrimack fell to Limestone in the national championship, but the others were seniors in high school during that run, arriving on campus in North Andover in September.

“I think when you have seniors do that and you have freshmen that play like they're 22-year-olds, it's pretty incredible and you can see the result out there,” Schmell said.

The Merrimack defense was smothering at times this season, but it was the offense that led the way. The Warriors scored single digits once all year — an 8-5 loss to Le Moyne on March 24.

“I've never seen anything like that,” Morgan said of the postseason run. “Those are three good teams that these guys just dominated. I thought it was their mindset, and you heard Hunter use the term a lot, relentless. That's one thing we talked about, like we're going to be on you from the first whistle to the last. They had that mentality. I think if you can get to the next level, whether it's playoffs or whatever, you can have that mentality, you put something great together if you have a great squad.”

For the rest of Division II, Merrimack’s youth is scary. Despite graduating seniors like Blake Boudreau and Eric Coburn on offense, the Warriors return all three of the starting attackmen and will have them together for two more seasons, with Black and Thomas back for the next three.

“The biggest thing we'll miss going into next year will be there will be new leadership shoes, you have those two [Hunter Schmell and James Bassett] leaving, obviously, Jack and Coburn and Blake,” Morgan said. “We'll lose some key pieces, but you also lose that leadership that put this thing in motion, because I've never seen three dominating performances in a row like that. I think they were just so ready for every opponent.”