Waterville striker Kyle McMorrow, the Gatorade and Adidas Player of the Year in the state of Maine, headlines a list three men’s soccer recruits who signed National Letters-of-Intent to attend the University of Maine.

The other two are midfielders Matthew Bernal from Wallkill, N.Y., a three-time member of the New York State Olympic Development Program, and Jason Brennan of Swarthmore, Pa., an All-Southeastern Pennsylvania selection by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

McMorrow concluded his soccer career at Waterville by leading the Panthers to the state Class A championship. He had 23 goals this past fall and tallied 45 goals and 25 assists during his career. He is currently playing for Waterville’s top-seeded hockey team in the Eastern Maine playoffs.

Brennan amassed 51 goals and 32 assists during his high school career and Bernal finished his high school playing days with 26 goals and 65 assists.

“One thing you can tell by looking at their stats is that they are all attacking players,” said Maine coach Travers Evans. “Kyle and Jason are finishers and Matt is a very creative midfielder who is more of a table-setter. They are all very athletic and very technical as well. They all have the ability to run at defenders and beat them via the dribble.

“The combination of these three players plus the attacking players we’ll have back will make us a pretty dangerous team in the future,” added Evans. “We created a lot of scoring chances last year but we didn’t finish as many as we wanted to. Hopefully, the younger players we had will finish more of those next year and the new guys have the ability to put the ball in the net.”

Maine went 3-11-2 overall, 0-8-1 in America East in Evans’ first season.

Bears control own destiny

The University of Maine men’s hockey team could finish anywhere from second to fifth in Hockey East depending upon the outcome of this weekend’s games.

Maine (10-7-5 in the league) and New Hampshire (10-7-5) are currently tied for third, four points behind 13-6-3 Providence. Providence visits Orono for two.

New Hampshire has a home-and-home with last-place Massachusetts, which is one point behind Merrimack for the final playoff spot; Boston University and UMass-Lowell are tied for fifth with 21 points apiece.

BU hosts Merrimack and league leader Boston College while UMass-Lowell has one game left at Northeastern.

The tie-breaking procedure, in order, goes like this: 1. head-to-head; 2. number of conference wins; 3. best record against the top-seeded team, then the second-seeded team and on and on and; 4. coin toss.

Maine would win a tie-breaker with Providence because the only way that could occur would be if Maine swept PC this weekend and that would give it a 2-1 edge in the season series; if Providence, UNH and Maine finish tied it would be UNH second, Maine third and Providence fourth.

Maine would probably lose a tiebreaker with New Hampshire. The teams went 1-1-1 but UNH has beaten Boston College and Maine hasn’t.

Maine needs just one point or one lost point by BU to sew up a home-ice berth for the quarterfinals.