The beginning of the Cavaliers men’s soccer season was a rough one. The team was on a seven-game losing streak until the end of September when the Cavs won their first game against Rosemont and turned around the entire season.
The Cavs turned around their unlucky season opening to end up winning not only the CSAC championship, but also winning a game in the NCAA tournament for the first time in Cabrini history.
“We just stayed composed after having a rough start. We did not let that distract us from the common goal of winning the CSAC championship,” Jared Irwin, midfielder and junior business management major, said. “We all rallied around each other and we knew that eventually, things would start clicking. Although we struggled initially, we never stopped fighting for one another and that’s why I think we were successful.”
The team faced some challenges at the start of the 2017 season, including losing seven talented senior players and captains.
“The team lost a lot of talent last year, due to graduation, and we knew this year we had a tough task ahead of us replacing those guys,” Joe Fiore, a senior midfielder and exercise science and health promotion major, said. “It took coming together as a team and realizing we were a group of really talented players who had the potential to do big things.”
Senior goaltender Tim Allah said, “We had to build new chemistry as a team after losing the seniors and gaining the freshman, but once we found it, we were able to run through our conference with the help of our captain, Ben Roda, keeping us motivated in practice and before games.”
Despite their losing start, the Cavs did not give up. Instead, the men turned to each other, their coaches and the fans for encouragement and motivation to keep going. They were able to come back from their seven losses in the beginning of the season and win the CSAC championship.
“The main thing that really helped us was not giving up on each other when things seemed to not go our way,” Andre Justin, a sophomore year midfielder, said. “We also knew it was important to keep the trust between everyone in the program including the coaching staff.”
“None of us gave up or put our heads down. We came in every day to hard work and that’s what gave us the edge to get that CSAC championship and an NCAA tournament win for the first time ever in Cabrini history,” Allah said.
Senior captain Ben Roda used his last year of eligibility to lead the team to victory throughout the conference.
“As for the leadership, guys like me, Ben Roda, Matt Ochman and Sal Zampirri have all been in these tough situations before. It took us using our experience to help our younger group of sophomores and freshman work together,” Fiore said.
The men’s soccer team took what seemed to be a hopeless season and transformed it into one of the greatest soccer seasons Cabrini has ever seen. By working together as a team and learning lessons from their losses, the Cavs were able to take their season farther than any men’s soccer team has for Cabrini.
“We knew we still had a chance to make something out of the year and once we got that first win against Rosemont, we never looked back,” Sal Zampirri, midfielder and junior education major, said. “We didn’t ever want to have that feeling of losing again.”
