The St. Joseph’s Golden Eagles of New York went through heartbreak last season after losing in the Division 4 Regional Championship to Millersville University. As St. Joseph’s enters their fourth year in the ECRHA, they find themselves in the newly aligned Division 3 along with other familiar opponents from Division 4 such as Cornell, Vermont and many more. Back in August, Head Coach Dino Virone shared his thoughts with Ryan Dunn of the Coast 2 Coast Media Team about the team moving up to Division 3 by saying, “SJC is looking forward to joining D3 this season. The new divisional alignments allow us to be even more competitive while attempting to go to Nationals.”

St. Joseph’s has qualified for Regionals in each of their three seasons in the league. Co-Founder, former captain and current assistant coach Chris Carleo spoke about what the Golden Eagles need to do in order to continue that trend this season. “We need to play within a system as a team,” Carleo said. “We knew what worked with the group of players that we had last year. There’s a lot of similarities in this group this year.” Carleo also alluded to the possibilities for every team in Division 3 by mentioning, “The entire season for every team in this division is going to be battle, but I think if we could play as a team the way we want to, we have a chance to surprise some people.”

During Pre-Season weekend, St. Joseph’s went 2-1 with wins over Pittsburgh (forfeit) and Vermont. New players Nick Mercado, Ryan MacDowell and Vincenzo LaRosa all scored goals in their debut weekend. Mercado finished with three goals and four assists while MacDowell finished with four goals and one assist as the team's point leaders to close out the weekend. When asking about the impact these players had, Chris stated, “They all bring different elements that I get excited about.” Despite losing Player of the Year and Goalie of the Year finalists Bobby Yevoli and Joseph Tedesco, coach Carleo is confident in this year’s group when saying, “We have a group of players this year that we think can bring that same type of energy and production.” The team starts their season next weekend in Sewell, New Jersey against Endicott, Temple and Baruch.