NCAA Record

St. Anselm senior wide receiver Justin Bernard set the Division II all-time receptions record during a 55-24 victory at Merrimack this past Saturday. With his second catch of the day and his 326th of his career, Bernard broke Robert Holland of Chowan's previous record of 325 catches set just last year.

Bernard finished the game with 13 catches for 157 yards and a touchdown. He now has 50 catches in five games this season and leads the league in receiving yards as well. He also holds all of the receiving records in St. Anselm history.

"He is Mr. Consistent," head coach Patrick Murphy said of his senior wide receiver. "He gets everyone's best shot each week and he is now the national record holder. That speaks volumes."

Bernard also tied the record for consecutive games with a reception as well. He tied former St. Anselm great and teammate Marcel Bouie at 35 straight games with a reception. He has caught a pass in 39 of the 40 games that he has played in since his arrival at St. Anselm back in 2010.

For his career, Bernard has 337 receptions and has an outside shot at 400 receptions if he is able to keep up his 10 catch per game average over the final five regular season games and NE-10 championship weekend. The all-time leader across all divisions in the NCAA is 463 catches for a career.

Bernard was happy with the record but focused on the bigger picture of his team and their success in the first five games of the season.

"Four years here and everyone has doubted us," Bernard said after the game. "We are taking it one week at a time. We have an older team so we are trying to going 1-0 every week."

Bernard will look to extend his record this Saturday when they entertain American International with first place in the league on the line.

Deja Vu

Way back in 2008, I covered the Merrimack/St. Anselm match up on a chilly Friday night in October. St. Anselm entered the game on a 30 plus game losing streak but their new head coach had them prepared to play that night. That game was the first win for St. Anselm head coach Patrick Murphy and it looks like good times were ahead for the program.

But that feeling was short lived as they lost at Southern Connecticut the following weekend by the score of 56-0. They finished the season with a win at Pace and had a 2-8 record that season. The team was 10-52 during his tenure over the past six seasons.

Fast forward to 2014 and last Saturday with the same teams and same venue. Murphy led his team to a 55-24 victory over Merrimack and their first ever 5-0 start in school history. In fact, the program holds only one other five game winning streak since it was revived in 1999.

The turnaround of the St. Anselm program is amazing if you have not followed them throughout the years. Murphy has had the vision of this day since taking over the program in 2008. It just took him seven seasons to find a team that shared the vision and then executed it on the field.

Close Games

New Haven and Bentley have played five weeks of football and each of their games have come down to the final play of the game. Including a touchdown with 1.3 second left when the two teams plays each other in Week 4 of the season.

New Haven won their second straight road game, this time in overtime at Stonehill 23-17 last Saturday night. The Chargers had not played in an overtime game since 2011 when they defeated West Chester in the opening week of the season.

"Maybe we figured out a way to make one more play in the fourth quarter," New Haven head coach Chris Pincince said. "We need to clean things up early in the game so it never gets to that point."

New Haven is home this weekend with the Elm City Trophy on the line as they host crosstown rival Southern Connecticut.

The news for Bentley continues to get worse. They lost their fourth straight league game in the final seconds as they were intercepted in the end zone. The losing streak started with a tough loss at home to Stonehill in Week 2.

In those four losses, Bentley has only been outscored by a total of 17 points. First year head coach Bill Kavanaugh is not used to the tough times for his alma mater. When he starred ten years ago on the field, Bentley was the perennial power of the league and everyone wanted to be as good as the Falcon program. It is a different era for the league and unfortunately, he is at the wrong end of the standings.

Bentley has another tough match up as they host Merrimack this Saturday.

New Rivalry

The past three years have seen three memorable games played between New Haven and Stonehill. It all started on a Thursday night in 20-12 in front of a national television audience. Stonehill welcomed New Haven that night in front of the television cameras but the Chargers made a late drive to win the game 45-41.

Last year, Stonehill returned the favor as they scored 15 points in the fourth quarter to defeat New Haven 29-26 to knock the defending champs out of title game contention and vault themselves into the title game.

And again last Saturday night which saw an overtime thriller with New Haven again sneaking out with a 23-17 victory. Three years and three memorable games.

"The TV game started it," Stonehill head coach Rob Talley said of the rivalry. "Our guys realized that they could beat those guys."

The other connection is that former Boston University teammates are matching up against each other. Talley starred with the Terriers and then helped to recruit former New Haven head coach Peter Rossomando. Current New Haven head coach Chris Pincince also played football at Boston University and was a freshman when Talley was a senior.

Circle the New Haven/Stonehill match up on the calendar for 2015 as it should be a good one.

New Haven Sweep

Assumption pulled off a rare feat last Saturday when they defeated Southern Connecticut 13-12. Along with their win at New Haven earlier in the season, they pulled off the "New Haven Sweep." They won both games played in the city of New Haven over the NE-10 teams located there.

It is an amazing feat for a team that continues to win games on the road in the NE-10. They won five consecutive regular season games on the road last year and now have won two straight this year on the road.

For the game this weekend, they might want to call Pace and see if they can switch the venue of the game from Worcester back to New York.

Overtime

Saturday night was the second overtime game of the season in the league and I was in attendance. The other game was the St. Anselm/Southern Connecticut match up in Week 2 that saw the Hawks win 23-20.

I was also covering the West Chester/New Haven game in 2011 that saw the Chargers win 35-32 in overtime. So overtime seems to follow me where ever I go.

League Balance

The NE-10 has two undefeated teams right now but a total of seven teams still have championship game aspirations. AIC and St. Anselm will square off this weekend, leaving only one undefeated team in the league.

LIU Post has one loss in the league and Merrimack, Stonehill, New Haven and Assumption have two losses in the league at the halfway point of the season. There are still plenty of games to be played between them so they will eliminate themselves over the next five weeks.

But the league is extremely balanced right now and that is a great thing for the future of the league. They always have one or two good teams but to have this type of parity is good on many levels.

The games are competitive and the recruiting is getting easier for the league. Local kids are more likely to stay in the area and play in the NE-10. Plus the recruiting base has expanded into New York/New Jersey where a number of the top league quarterbacks have come from.

This is a great sign for the future of the league. Despite not being able to compete on the national level right now, a lot of strides have been made over the last several years. It will not be long before they are able to compete on the national level just like all of the other sports that the NE-10 sponsors.