Valiants' men, women among nation's   
hockey elite

Thursday, November 30, 2006
By Joe Lombardi

When B.J. Greaves was growing up playing hockey in Nipigon, Ontario, on the northernmost tip of Lake Superior, he could have hardly imagined that one day he would be a captain of a college team located just 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

"I never really heard of Manhattanville," said Greaves, a senior forward for the Valiants.

After paying a trip to the campus, Greaves was surprised by what he saw.

"I thought it was going to be more in the city or have more of a city atmosphere than it does," he said. "But it's kind of out in the country a little bit. You don't have the big city on top of you - but it's there if you want it."

One thing Manhattanville does have is two of the top Division III hockey programs. The 8-0-1 men's team is ranked third in the nation. The 5-1 women are ranked seventh.

Those rankings are even more impressive when you consider both programs are just eight years old.

How have they risen so far so fast?

"First and foremost is the support from the school," said women's coach Nicole Hall, a Carmel resident. "The administration is very supportive of the programs and wants to see them be successful. When the support starts at the top, it ensures that the program will have the resources to succeed. That's the biggest thing."

Keith Levinthal, who has coached the men's team since its inception, said that in building the program it was important to not only get the right kind of players, but the right kind of people.

"We needed players, but the most important thing was, we needed good people," he said. "I don't know if the campus was 100 percent welcoming to having a hockey team.

"We were under the microscope the first year. We wanted to make sure guys contribute to the campus and to the community. We wanted to establish the right culture."

Levinthal reinforced that message in the Valiants' last game. Manhattanville beat Williams 5-2 at Playland Ice Casino on Sunday even though 13 players were serving one-period suspensions and junior forward Brendan McIntyre (three games) and freshmen A.J. Mikkelsen and Arlen Marshall (two games) were also suspended for violating team policy.

"They were really minor things, but our expectations for the guys are really high," Levinthal said.

Manhattanville also has big expectations on the ice. Now for the Valiants, the next big thing would be a national championship.

The women's team has advanced to the title game twice - in Hall's first two seasons (2001-02 and 2002-03), losing to Elmira both years. Middlebury has won the last three national titles.

Manhattanville's men's team climbed to No. 1 in the national rankings two seasons ago. The Valiants have lost in the NCAA quarterfinals each of the last two years after being the No. 1 seed two years ago and the No. 2 seed last season. Middlebury's men's team has won eight of the last 11 national championships.

"The seniors and juniors that were here the last couple of years feel we had teams that could have gone all the way, but we came up short," Greaves said. "We feel we have some unfinished business to take care of this year."

But Levinthal is quick to point out the men lost 12 seniors from last year's 20-5-2 team.

"This is a brand-new team," Levinthal said. "We have a ton of new faces, so we're taking it slower. To put those kind of expectations on this team is unfair."

One of the freshmen who has emerged as a key contributor is forward Matt Piegza, who leads the men's team in scoring with nine goals and 14 points.

"I figured I would be part of the team pretty early on, but I didn't expect to be this big a part," Piegza said. "I didn't know it would be this quick and this sudden."

The 6-foot, 185-pound Piegza, who is from Blue Island, Ill., is one of nine Americans on a 29-player roster that includes 17 Canadians.

The men also have a player from Sweden - freshman forward Niklas Berntsson -and one from Belgium - freshman goaltender Jens Van Poucke.

"I don't really care where we get guys from as long as they can fit into the program," said Levinthal, who also serves as the school's athletic director. "If we can get guys from five miles down the road, all the better."

Two of the women's team's 21 players are local residents: sophomore forwards Michelle Witz (Pelham) and Alex Blackwell (Brewster). They were also teammates on the Hudson Valley scholastic women's hockey team in the Empire State Games.

"I got to know Alex through Empires and because our club teams played against each other," Witz said.

Now they're two of the key players on a team that does not have a single senior.

"This year, we're definitely younger and there's a lot more different personalities," said Witz, whose father, Ed, has coached Pelham's varsity boys team for 20 years. "But I feel we can come together more."

Piegza feels the same way.

"I haven't been here in years past, but it seems as if there's something more special about this group of guys," he said. "It seems like there's a pretty good chemistry here."