CHC readies for men’s soccer debut

by TOM UTESCHER

For the 2003-‘04 academic year, its first as a co-ed school, Chestnut Hill College introduced men’s basketball as its initial intercollegiate sport for male athletes. This fall, men’s soccer has been accorded the same status, after functioning strictly as a club team in 2003.

The Griffin booters will play in the newly-formed North Eastern Athletic Conference, which consists primarily of NCAA Division III colleges in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State.
Shawn Ferris, who guided the college’s 2003 women’s team to the NCAA tournament, has jumped genders to pilot the new men’s program. Ferris (who’s also an assistant athletic director at CHC) has recruited the Griffins’ women’s lacrosse coach, Jebb Chagan, to serve as his soccer assistant this fall.

As with the basketball team last winter, Ferris’ roster is made up largely of freshmen and sophomores, although there are four juniors on the list. One of them, Mike McDonald, was a student at Chestnut Hill last year, and played basketball for the Griffs.

The other third-year men are transfer students: Joe Grinkewicz, a striker from Delaware Valley College, Raun Parker, a forward from the Community College of Philadelphia, and Greg Webb, a center back from Delaware County Community College.

Webb is a co-captain of the fledgling team, along with defensive midfielder Mike Devine, who was also a member of Chestnut Hill’s hoops squad last winter. Three other current sophomores on the team also entered CHC last year, forward David Hohneker, defender Dale Montford, and Tan Tang. Utility player George Roitzsch, a transfer, rounds out the sophomore segment of the roster.

The freshman class features several sets of high school teammates. Goalie Stephen Foster, defender Matt Guyon, and center-mid Jeff Lewin played together at Roman Catholic, and goaltender George Binaco and outside-mid Daniel DeSoucey both hail from Ocean Township, NJ. A fourth former Catholic League player is Joseph Swoyer, a goalie out of Bishop McDevitt.
Center-mid Boyd McCorkle, who now lives in Ridgefield, CT., grew up in Seattle and participated in the junior Olympic developmental program. Coach Ferris also went north to recruit Ryan Piles, a forward from Rochester, NY.

Outside mids Bradley Buckman and Mike Ritter and utility player Aaron Henke are also among the first-year men at CHC.

The new squad will play home games on a significantly upgraded soccer/lacrosse field, which has been expanded, resodded, and framed by several sets of bleachers to accommodate a growing Griffin fan base.