The 2011-12 season will be Ryan Soderquist’s 10th as the head hockey coach at Bentley University.

Now the winningest and longest tenured coach in program history, Soderquist has overseen Bentley’s rise from a fledging Division I program to one that competes with, and beats, some of the top teams in the country.

In each of the last three seasons, Soderquist has guided his team to a victory over a Hockey East school; Maine in 2008-09, Massachusetts in 2009-10 and Northeastern in 2010-11. That win over UMass, ranked 15th at the time, was the highest ranked team Bentley has ever beaten and came in the finals of the Toyota UConn Classic, giving the program its first tournament championship in either regular season or postseason play.

Last year, a 3-2 victory over Connecticut on Nov. 19, 2010 was the 102nd of Soderquist’s career, moving him past Jim McAdam and into first place on the program’s all-time career wins list.

In 2008-09, Soderquist led Bentley to arguably its finest season ever. Picked to finish ninth in the Atlantic Hockey preseason poll, the Falcons went 19-17-2, a 10-win turnaround from 2007-08. That improvement was the biggest in Atlantic Hockey and the third biggest in Division I hockey, trailing only the national champions Boston University and Ohio State, another NCAA Tournament team. The 19 wins were second most in school history and the most since Bentley began competing in Division I in 1999.

Soderquist also led Bentley to 15 wins in Atlantic Hockey play and a fourth place finish, the team’s most AHA wins since joining the conference at its inception in 2003. Bentley advanced to the Atlantic Hockey semifinals for the third time after earning home-ice advantage for the quarterfinals and beating Canisius two-games-to-one.

Along the way, Soderquist and the Falcons had a season full of highlights. In the second game of the season, they defeated Rensselaer on the road in overtime. They earned one of the program’s highest profile wins ever with a 3-1 triumph at Maine, their first over a Hockey East school. They also defeated No. 20 Air Force for what was then the program’s first victory over a ranked team.

Bentley’s success did not go unnoticed, as Soderquist was named by his peers as the Atlantic Hockey Coach of the Year. As a result, he was named a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award, given to the top coach in NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey.

Soderquist has also presided over the careers of four of the highest scoring players in program history. Dain Prewitt ‘09, Anthony Canzoneri ‘09, Jeff Gumaer ‘09 and Marc Menzione ‘10 finished their careers as the first four 100-point scorers in the school’s Division I history. Prewitt and Gumaer became the fourth and fifth members of Bentley’s 60-goal club in 2008-09, and the first two to do it solely at Division I.

Additionally, five of his players have been named All-Atlantic Hockey during his tenure and six have been named All-Rookie. Soderquist’s team is regularly among the most well-represented on the Atlantic Hockey All-Academic team.

In his fourth season at the helm in 2005-06, the Stoneham, Mass., native took the Falcons all the way to the Atlantic Hockey championship game, their deepest foray into the postseason since joining Division I. That season, Bentley beat Army in the quarterfinals and upset second-seeded Mercyhurst in the semifinals, both in thrilling double-overtime games, to advance to its first-ever Division I conference championship game. With 15 wins that season, Soderquist’s team equaled the mark he set in his first year as head coach in 2002-03.

In fact, Bentley had as many wins in Soderquist’s first season as the Falcons had in the previous three. His fellow coaches recognized Soderquist for this turnaround with his selection as the 2002-03 MAAC Hockey League Coach of the Year.

In Soderquist’s first several seasons on the job, he led Bentley to accomplishments that no other team in program history had reached. In his first season, the Falcons swept Army for the first time, including two victories at Tate Rink, a rink that Bentley had never won in prior to his appointment. He also guided Bentley to its first wins at Canisius, Mercyhurst, RIT and its first-ever win against Connecticut. In 2006, Soderquist’s squad became the first Falcon team to defeat an ECAC Hockey team at the Division I level with a win at Princeton.

Soderquist, a 2000 graduate of Bentley and the school’s all-time leading scorer, was named the head hockey coach at his alma mater on March 7, 2002, becoming the youngest head coach in Division I hockey. He had spent the 2001-02 season as an assistant under McAdam.

As a senior in 1999-2000, Bentley’s first in Division I, Soderquist wrapped up a sparkling career with 19 goals and 29 assists for 48 points, with the latter two still the single-season program records at the Division I level. He finished his career with 84 goals and 89 assists for 173 points, 24 higher than Bentley’s former standard-bearer, John Maguire ’84. The 84 goals are also a school record and the 89 assists are tied for second on the all-time list. As a sophomore in 1997-98, he set the program’s single-season record for points with 59 and goals with 33. Both records still stand.

The recipient of numerous honors during his career, Soderquist was Bentley’s captain for two seasons. After his record breaking sophomore year, he was named an SID’s first team Division II All-America. As a senior, he led the conference in points per game and assists, was second in total points and was named first team All-MAAC.

Soderquist is a graduate of Arlington Catholic High School. He also spent a postgraduate year at Winchendon Prep. He received his bachelor of science degree in marketing in May 2000.

He and his wife, Jessica, reside in Woburn with their daughters, Cora and Madeline.