A team with a new coach usually has a full offseason to adjust to a new coach. Wagner compressed it into a little more than two months.

The Seahawks had already gone through fall scrimmages by the time Bill McCutcheon was hired Oct. 23, and had only 14 days of practice (much of it in frigid weather) prior to Saturday.

Little wonder there probably wasn’t a team that rightly derived more satisfaction from an opening weekend victory. Wagner outlasted Bellarmine for a 7-6 overtime victory on the road, a first step in the new era of a program that’s made strides in recent years but still has plenty more work to do to become a contender in the Northeast Conference.

“It was important to get that first win and prove to ourselves that we’re on the right track and the things we’re talking about, it will put us in the win column if we’re checking all the boxes,” McCutcheon said. “When you combined that with the never-quit attitude this senior group is now embodying, we’re going to be in the fight. That’s all you can ask for.”

The Seahawks won a combined 20 games over the previous four seasons under former Virginia star Matt Poskay, a credible total for a program that’s struggled to get traction throughout its existence. Poskay left for Montclair State in late September, leaving Wagner with an unexpected coaching search in the fall.

Enter McCutcheon, who spent the last five years as an assistant at Monmouth and wasn’t looking to leave. But he was intrigued by the opening on Staten Island.

“I like everything about the school,” McCutcheon said. “We competed against Wagner for five years and being from New Jersey, I knew players who had gone there and had family and friends who attended Wagner. For me, it was kind of a no-brainer to explore this. Once I got on campus and saw the things they had in mind for us going forward, it was an easy sell.”

There just wasn’t much time to get ready for this year. McCutcheon’s priority late in the fall was to bring his players closer together and ensure everyone got to know each other. He emphasized competition and culture.

The Seahawks have a 14-man senior class, a group that’s collectively impressed McCutcheon with its willingness to embrace change. It also produced some solid performances in the opener. Midfielder Spencer Kaufman scored three goals, including the winner in overtime. Goalie Matt Sefcik made 16 saves.

And after Saturday’s visit to Manhattan, Wagner will play four of its next five at home as the normal pace of a season settles in.

“I think we’re on the right track,” McCutcheon said. “I’d be remiss if I thought we didn’t have plenty of work to do. Anybody who is a competitor knows the second you feel good is when you get clipped. But more than anything, we want to have a lot of fun. It’s fun to celebrate wins, and it’s a feeling we hope to have more often than not.”

Terps turn to Dolan

Senior goalie Danny Dolan made 11 saves in his first start at Maryland and earned an 11-6 victory over Bucknell to open the year. He earned two starts in 2016 at Massachusetts, and logged just 4 minutes, 11 seconds worth of playing time the last two years behind Danny Morris.

You’d think that would make Saturday’s 60 minutes easily the highlight of Dolan’s Terrapin career to date. That would be incorrect. He played the last 27 seconds of Maryland’s NCAA quarterfinal defeat of Albany in 2017, getting a goalie’s-eye view of the Terps celebrating a trip to Memorial Day weekend.

It was also his first action at Maryland, an especially sweet development since he was both a Terp fan growing up and was only a year removed from wondering where his career would lead him after leaving UMass.

“I’ll never forget coach telling me to get warm,” Dolan said. “There was about 20 seconds left in the game and I was like ‘Come on, we need a whistle. Blow the whistle. I want to get in there.’ I was in there for 20 seconds and the ball was on the other end of the field, but I was so excited. I thought ‘This is the coolest thing ever. This time last year, I’m sitting at home on the couch watching this game and thinking I don’t know if I’m ever going to play again’”

Now he’s the latest to take over a position synonymous with success, and just the fourth starting goalie in coach John Tillman’s nine seasons. Morris closed out his career with an honorable mention All-America nod last year. His predecessors, Niko Amato and Kyle Bernlohr, both were First Team All-America picks during their careers.

Dolan remains close with Morris, and he talked with Bernlohr before his first Maryland start. This season, though, is his chance to carve out his own place in the Terps’ illustrious line of goalies.

“It’s really cool knowing them and knowing that they’re supporting you,” Dolan said. “I try not to think about it and go play my own game. Kyle said something and I responded ‘Oh, I’ve got big shoes to fill’ and he said ‘No, play your game.’ I didn’t even think about it other than that. I just wanted to go out there and have fun and enjoy it.”

Heels embrace balance

North Carolina scored the first six goals in what was to become a 20-9 rout of Mercer on Saturday, something that no doubt pleased coach Joe Breschi after his the Tar Heels’ offense sputtered in scrimmages.

Even better, six different players scored in that stretch, making it a challenge to pick out a breakout player.

“I think that’s a tough question because of the balanced offense,” Breschi said. “The thing I really liked was we didn’t care who scored. Guys were sharing and making the extra pass and not settling for 15-yarder when there was a 7-yarder or 8-yarder. It was balanced across the board.”

The Tar Heels had seven multi-goal scorers and 12 players overall found the net. They played five attackmen and four midfield units. About the only player to have an unusually heavy load was freshman faceoff man Zachary Tucci, who won 16 of 30 draws in his debut.

Breschi said it took about two weeks for his team to get over freshman defenseman Will Bowen’s season-ending knee injury. As deflating as that was, few things are a better bet to lift a team’s spirits than an offense committed to sharing the ball.

“Now the ball seems to be humming a little bit more,” Breschi said. “It’s good to see.”

Best of both worlds

With the galvanizing force of the shot clock rule this season, it’s more than just players getting used to how to deal with the changes in the game.

The same goes for coaches, which means every game is an opportunity to test out ideas and strategies. And that made Ohio State’s 12-9 defeat of Cleveland State sort of an ideal opener on Saturday.

The Buckeyes led by at least three goals throughout the fourth quarter, but the Vikings hung around enough to make Nick Myers and his staff run through their share of permutations. It might have created a little extra tension Saturday, but it could pay off later.

“I think with the last eight minutes or so, we all have to get reps,” Myers said. “Just like players, you have to practice the reps of managing games. You’re coming down the stretch with around six minutes to go and you’re up four or down three or up two, how do you create tempo and how do you do what you need to do to put yourself in a position to close a game? This clock creates a whole other realm of scenarios.”

Next up for 400

Duke coach John Danowski presided over his 400th career victory when the Blue Devils handled Furman 17-9 in their opener Saturday. He is the first Division I men’s coach to reach that plateau, but there might not be many more joining him.

Denver’s Bill Tierney (395 wins) will probably do so sometime in March, but there are only two other active coaches with at least 250 victories: Bryant’s Mike Pressler (359) and Notre Dame’s Kevin Corrigan (304). Brown’s Mike Daly (259 wins) will count for the NCAA’s record-keeping purposes once he spends five seasons at a Division I school; he’s entering his third year with the Bears.

So how long might it be for even a coach of a regular contender to get to 400? Maryland’s John Tillman has averaged 13.75 victories per season since arriving in College Park from a three-year stint at Harvard. If he matched that pace, it would still be another 20 seasons before he got to 400 career victories.

In other words, appreciate both the acumen and longevity required for a run at 400. It’s unlikely many more will be able to pull it off.

By the numbers

Boston University’s Joe McSorley made 24 saves in Sunday’s 8-7 defeat of Providence, while Brett Dobson of St. Bonaventure had 23 stops in an 11-0 loss at High Point. Both figures are larger than any single-game figure from last season in all of Division I. The last goalie with at least 24 saves in a D-I game was Detroit’s Jason Weber, who had 28 against Mercer on March 4, 2015. ... Lehigh’s Craig Chick had five caused turnovers in the Mountain Hawks’ 15-8 rout of NJIT, giving him 123 for his career. He jumped from eighth to a share of fourth on the NCAA’s all-time caused turnover list. … Vermont’s scoring total in its 21-6 defeat of Utah was its largest since a 22-7 defeat of Marist on March 25, 1994.