NORTH ANDOVER — Merrimack College men’s lacrosse coach Mike Morgan, who guided the program to two Div. 2 national championships, stepped down after the program’s stunning defeat of Bryant University, 16-14, on Saturday afternoon in Smithfield, R.I.
The school issued the statement about Morgan leaving the program on Saturday night.
Morgan departs the Warriors after a 17-year tenure as head coach and one year as an assistant.
Morgan will not be coaching the team next week when it faces the University of Albany in the America East semifinals on Thursday night.
Ironically, Albany was the team Merrimack faced a week ago in North Andover when a Merrimack College player was said to have yelled a racial slur at a Haudenosaunee Indigenous player from Albany.
That player was removed from the team after the game and the Merrimack athletic director, Jeremy Gibson, apologized to Albany team.
Merrimack did not note if that issue last week had anything to do with him leaving.
With a record of 188 wins and 72 losses, Morgan is the winningest coach in program history and ranks among the winningest coaches at any level in collegiate lacrosse (7th winningest coach in Division II history and the 16th winningest active coach in all divisions) and also holds the record as the fastest coach to earn 50 NCAA wins.
During Morgan’s tenure, the Warriors reached the NCAA Division II Final Four six times, winning the 2018 and 2019 Division II National Championships and finishing as runner-up in 2017. The 2017 Division II National Coach of the Year and former president of the NEILA (2017-2021) won three Northeast 10 conference championships.
Morgan, an All-American honoree (2000) as a player, coached 26 All Americans in addition to several student-athletes that went on to play in the MLL, and one to play in the PLL as well as USA gold medal winner Charlie Bertrand. He led the Warriors into the Division I era with the first win coming over Michigan in February of 2020. The men’s lacrosse program has averaged a 3.4 GPA over the past six seasons and twice won the Merrimack College Athletics Community Service Award (Adopt A Platoon, New Horizons, and Greater Lawrence Tech Lacrosse Outreach program) and helped found MACKLAN, a Merrimack men’s lacrosse career and mentorship program.
Merrimack will begin a search for the men’s lacrosse head coach position.