KINGS POINT, N.Y. (Nov. 15, 2021) – The 2021 USMMA football season is not over yet! The Mariners have been selected to compete in the Fifth Annual New England Bowl Series next weekend, the commissioners of four NCAA Division III conferences (the CCC, ECFC, MASCAC and NEWMAC) announced on Monday.
 
Merchant Marine, the second-place team in the NEWMAC, will travel to Western New England, the second-place team in the Commonwealth Coast Conference, this Saturday, Nov. 20, up in Springfield, Mass.
 
This is the third invite to a regional bowl game for the USMMA football program under retiring 17th-year head coach Mike Toop '77, with all of three of them coming in the past five years. The Mariners won the ECAC Clayton Chapman Bowl in 2017 over Buffalo State down at the University of Delaware, and then captured the New England Bowl in 2018 on the road at Endicott College.
 
It will be the 10th postseason game all-time for Merchant Marine. The Mariners have played in seven ECAC Bowl games (5-2 record, the last in 2017), one New England Bowl game (1-0, 2018) and one NCAA Tournament Game (0-1, 1994).
 
USMMA goes into the New England Bowl with an 8-1 overall record, which ties for the program record for most wins in a season. The Mariners went 5-1 in NEWMAC action, winning their third-straight Secretaries' Cup this past Saturday over arch-rival Coast Guard on ESPN3 in the final weekend of the regular season.
 
Western New England boasts a 7-3 record on the season, including a 5-1 mark in CCC play. The Golden Bears sat in a two-way tie for first place in the conference standings with Endicott, but the Gulls won the head-to-head tiebreaker to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
 
To read the official release from the NEWMAC Conference, click here. The other game in the 2021 New England Bowl Series will see Alfred State (6-4, 5-1) of the ECFC hit the road to face UMass-Dartmouth (8-2, 6-2) of the MASCAC in another battle of both leagues' second-place finishers.
 
Kickoff against Western New England on Saturday, Nov. 20, is scheduled for 1 p.m. at WNEU's Golden Bear Stadium. More information on the game, including ticket info and live web links, will be posted on www.USMMASports.com on the USMMA Football Schedule Page as soon as it's available throughout this week.
 
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