Backup QB gets his chance

When Merrimack College starting quarterback Kurt Leone went down with an injury last week, James Suozzo got his chance.

He made it count. Leading the Warriors to a 31-20 win over Pace, the former Everett High signal caller threw for three touchdowns (21 of 42 passing, for 246 yards) and ran for another, earning the Northeast-10 Conference's Player and Freshman of the Week awards after his first collegiate start.

First-year coach John Perry said the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Suozzo was in control, showing poise and the ability to strike both on the ground and through the air.

"I think he's going to get better and better every day," said Perry. "He's got a big strong arm, he's a good athlete, and was part of some real good programs, when you think of Everett and Bridgton Academy," where Suozzo played a post-grad year last season.

While Suozzo started under center Friday night, Leone, a sophomore, started the first four games for the Warriors (3-2, 2-1 NE-10) and posted two 330-yard efforts, earning a NE-10 Player of the Week award of his own. Perry said that Suozzo (who threw one of his touchdowns against Pace to ex-Lynn Classical standout Quavari Jackson) will still be part of the plan when Leone returns to action this week, but wouldn't say whether he would start going forward.

"I would suspect that if [Suozzo's] going to be playing at the pace he's playing on, he's going to be a guy we're going to depend on to help us continue to win," said Perry. "He'll be a very big part of any winning we do in the short-term and long-term future."

Boston College raised a 2007-08 NCAA national championship men's hockey banner to the Conte Forum rafters on Friday night, and senior alternate captain Benn Ferriero (inset) was one of the Eagles standing on the blueline watching it go up. His 16-year-old brother, Cody, hopes he'll someday see another banner ascend to the same lofty space.

Last week, Cody, a junior forward at Governor's Academy in Byfield, made a verbal commitment to BC, potentially becoming the second of Julie and Peter Ferriero's sons to skate for Jerry York's crew. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Essex native would join The Heights in the fall of 2010.

Benn Ferriero, a seventh-round pick of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes in 2006, cracked the 40-point mark each of the past two years while playing in every game for the Eagles.

Swampscott's Adam Sussman, a junior forward on the Wheaton College men's soccer team, has scored only five goals in his collegiate career. But he has a knack for making them count. On Monday in Bristol, R.I., Sussman netted the game winner with just under three minutes remaining to beat Roger Williams. The win helped the Lyons stay in the national rankings, as Wheaton (7-2-2) has dropped from 15th to 25th in the most recent National Soccer Coaches Association of America Division 3 poll. Sussman, who played for the Big Blue, scored the game winner as Wheaton beat Clark in last year's NEWMAC semifinals. The next day, he scored against Babson as the Lyons won the NEWMAC title.

Sussman's first career goal, on Sept. 23, 2006, broke a scoreless deadlock in a game against MIT and would stand as the game winner.

Dean Phillips, co-owner of Peabody bike shop Fit Werx 2, had a successful summer, breaking four cycling time-trial records.

On Sept. 11, Phillips set a mark at the Duxbury Time Trial, covering the 12 miles in 24 minutes, 32 seconds. The previous week in Dover, he raced 7.7 miles in 15:42. On July 9, he won the Charlie Baker Time Trial in Concord with a record 19:29.

His best work was at the ECV Time Trial in Hamilton, on June 25. Phillips sped along the 11.4-mile course in 22 minutes, 37 seconds, a 30 m.p.h. average, breaking the record held by Tim Johnson, a three-time national cyclocross champ and Middleton native.

Matt Porter can be reached at heymattporter@gmail.com.