Colby-Sawyer College is located in New London, N.H., but with such a distinct Maine influence on its men’s basketball team, it may as well be a University of Maine satellite campus.

Heck, with seven of its 15 players hailing from the Pine Tree State, Colby-Sawyer has more Maine players on its roster than Colby College of Waterville.

Actually, the two-time defending Commonwealth Coast Conference champion has more Mainers than the average number on Maine’s 14 four-year collegiate men’s basketball programs (6.2 Mainers with an average roster size of 13.6 players).

Only four Maine’s college programs ? Maine Maritime Academy (12), University of Southern Maine (12), University of Maine-Farmington (11) and Thomas College (11) ? can boast more Maine players than the royal and white Chargers.

“There’s enough kids to go around, but what we’ve found is we’re all beating ourselves up over the same kids,” said Colby-Sawyer coach Bill Foti. “In Maine, the volume of kids is there that you don’t see in other states. We always went up there a little, but we’ve really been getting more aggressive lately.”

Foti’s incoming recruiting class bears that out as four of his seven freshmen are from Maine and three of them ? Andrew St. Clair from Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, Hodgdon’s Tyler Putnam, and Valley of Bingham’s Luke Hartwell ? are in the starting lineup, which is headed up by senior captain and forward Ethan Betts from Mount Abram High in Strong.

The rest of the Maine contingent includes twin brother Jason Hartwell from Valley, Chris Gray of Hermon and Freeport’s Nick Jewett.

“We’ve always targeted a few, but last year we hit the mother lode with players we’d targeted well before their senior years,” said Foti, now in his 11th season at the head of the Chargers’ bench.

Five of the top seven players in Foti’s regular rotation call “The Way Life Should Be” state home. After two straight conference titles and accompanying automatic bids to the NCAA Division III Tournament, the four-time CCC coach of the year is rebuilding with seven freshman, three sophomores, three juniors and two seniors.

So why the sudden attraction to Maine players?

“We thought there was a great volume of talent in Maine as opposed to some of the other northern New England states. Because of that, we’ve made it a point to go to Maine, and I really got hooked on the whole tournament atmosphere,” Foti explained. “I found the kids we’ve recruited from Maine, in general, are very well-coached – you have a wealth of very good high school coaches – and they’ve been in big games in front of big crowds, which I think helps them down the road.”

It doesn’t hurt that one of Foti’s assistant coaches, Clinton native Josh Pincoske, is a graduate of Lawrence High in Fairfield and another former player and assistant, Martin Binette, came from Westbrook.

“I was up there over the holidays over three times. I can’t tell you who I’m recruiting, but we’re going heavy with guards this year,” Foti said. “Basically, if there’s a kid from Maine who can play, he’s heard from us.”

Putnam and St. Clair heard from Foti, and they’re glad they answered the call.

“Definitely. When I got here, I thought I’d be much more of a role player than I’ve been,” Putnam said.

Instead, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound shooting guard has started every game, averaging 9.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks for the 11-5 Chargers, who have won five straight.

Last week, Putnam set a school record with nine blocked shots in a win over the University of New England. His feat broke the previous mark of seven, by teammate and fellow Mainer Gray, a junior.

St. Clair is leading the team with 15.1 points a game. He’s also averaging 8.3 boards a game.

“Andrew has been playing phenomenally well for us,” said Foti. “He’s been an absolute revelation.”

Even the optimistic St. Clair has been pleasantly surprised.

“We knew they were losing a lot of seniors, so I hoped to get a lot of playing time, but I didn’t expect this much,” said the sports management major. “Course, it’s surprising and quite unique to go to a different state and end up with so many kids here from the same state.”

The Maine migration started with Betts, who has a chance to become the school’s all-time leading rebounder.

The 220-pound, 6-3 Betts, who is averaging 14.0 points and 8.9 boards per game this season, has 1,161 career points. The two-time all-conference pick is exactly 85 rebounds away from the eight-year-old school record of 836.

“Ethan’s unique in that he’s very wide and a big, strong kid with long arms who can be too quick and athletic against bigger players and someone who can overpower smaller guys,” Foti said. “You don’t often see kids who can play with their back to the basket these days, but he can. Anyone who can do that is gold because they’re so rare.”

Since moving into the starting lineup 11 games into the season, Hartwell is putting up respectable numbers with 5.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.3 assists per game.

As hard as it is to imagine, the Chargers’ Maine influence might be greater had a knee injury not knocked twin brother Jason out for the year.

“He had major reconstructive surgery on it the day school started,” Foti said. “He actually had to go on a donor list where they had to take bone and tissue from a cadaver, put it in his knee, and rebuild it.”

Foti is redshirting Jason this season to preserve his four years of eligibility.

The rest of the Maine mob is also getting regular playing time as fellow juniors Gray and Jewett have each played nine games. Gray is back after taking a semester off and is gradually carving out more playing time for himself.

“He’ll be a factor for us, too, because he’s a 6-9 kid who can shoot and block shots and that’s a rare commodity in Division III,” Foti said.