'They play Catamount soccer': Veterans carry UVM into NCAA Tournament quarterfinals – Burlington Free Press

As University of Vermont men’s soccer geared up for the 2021 spring season during COVID, coach Rob Dow had concerns about his team’s overall experience.
From players moving on or opting out to high-quality commits reversing their decisions to come to Burlington during a pandemic, Dow welcomed nine freshmen and three transfers to a team that hadn’t played a game together in nearly 500 days.
Newcomers had little time to get acquainted with college soccer: New Hampshire, the Catamounts’ chief rival in America East, was the first game of that shortened campaign.
“We were in a position during the COVID season where somebody had to play those positions,” Dow said.
Freshmen and transfers were in the starting lineup. Returnees picked up leadership responsibilities. And the 0-0 result at UNH, looking back on it, was a defining moment for a Catamount team that has reached back-to-back NCAA tournaments and sits one victory away from the program’s first trip to the College Cup.
“Now there were a lot of trials and tribulations just to play that year, but it started then,” Dow said. “We needed them right away in the first game and they stepped up.”
Vermont (16-3-2) enters the quarterfinal round for just the second time — joining the run made by the 1989 outfit — following second-half comeback wins over Quinnipiac and SMU and a don’t-blink, 3-0 blanking of UCLA. Next up: Vermont plays at Syracuse (16-2-4) in Saturday’s fourth-round tournament matchup. Game time is 2 p.m. on ESPN+.
“This team is not scared to play against SMU or UCLA or Syracuse. They play Catamount soccer,” Dow said Wednesday, the day before his team departed for western New York.
More:Vermont men’s soccer at Syracuse: Game, ticket info for NCAA Tournament quarterfinals
Defender Zach Barrett’s first collegiate game? At UNH on March 12, 2021. Ditto for classmate Daniel Pacella and Iceland native Ýmir Már Geirsson. And Max Murray, another freshman, was an overtime sub on the back line, playing crucial minutes to help the Catamounts secure the road tie.
“I was thrown into my first game at UNH and it was a game like I’ve never played before. It was so different than anything I had been used to during my youth career,” Barrett recalled this week. “Being able to have the opportunity to play as a freshman definitely helped me a lot. I got acclimated to the college soccer climate really, really fast.”
Barrett wound up starting all eight games that spring and made the America East all-rookie squad, while Pacella was named the conference’s rookie of the year and Geirsson saw minutes in every contest. Another rookie, Jacob Vitale, figured into six matches and scored a game-winner on the road at UMass Lowell.
“These guys got experience from a young age that typically, on paper, they wouldn’t get,” Dow said.
The abbreviated season also allowed the team’s top returning talent — Alex Nagy, Joe Morrison, Garrett Lillie, Noah Egan and goalie Nate Silveira — to put their stamp on a program that expects annual success: The Catamounts made the NCAA Tournament in 2015 and 2016 and shared the league’s regular-season crown with UNH in 2019 before an untimely semifinal exit to Hartford.
“It was their team. It had to be their team,” Dow said. “To take that responsibility on has proven to be where we are right now. And now, as coaches, it’s our job to just get out of the way. These guys know what to do.”
The Catamounts, though, lost to UNH in the 2021 spring America East final.
“The COVID year was a good rebuilding year for us. We made it to the championship, but I don’t think we had our best year to be honest,” said Nagy, an All-American third-team selection that spring. “We were only scoring one goal a game and things weren’t flowing as much as we wanted.”
After halting UNH’s three-year title reign in last fall’s conference championship, Vermont lost a winnable first-round NCAA Tournament game at home to Villanova.
The loss stewed for months, fueling a record-setting campaign. The Catamounts tied Syracuse, their opponent on Saturday, in a 1-1 game in Burlington on Sept. 2 and beat Cornell 2-1 amid a then-nation-leading 11-game winning streak. Their 16 wins are the most since the 1989 squad captured 19 victories. And in the most recent national rankings, prior to the start of the NCAA Tournament, Vermont sits at a program-best No. 8 in the country.
In its 12th NCAA tourney appearance, Vermont has overcome a 2-1 deficit to beat Quinnipiac at home on Nagy’s double-overtime strike. At SMU, UVM rallied from a 2-0 halftime hole, punctuated by Murray’s brace and Lillie’s late winner. And against UCLA, the Cats ran rampant out of the break with three goals, boosted by Yavin Bazini and Yves Borie delivering dazzling, left-footed blasts.
UVM has scored eight of its nine tournament goals in the second half.
“We knew we could make a run like this, we knew we were capable of it,” Nagy said. “We say before every game that we don’t want this to be our last game. I think that’s what we’ve shown the last three games.”
And this run, and the formation of the team’s identity, can be traced back to the COVID spring season.
Barrett pairs with Egan to make a formidable center-back duo, defending at a level that has UVM eighth in the country in goals-against average (.660) while boasting 11 shutouts. Murray is the team’s leading scorer with 10 goals. Pacella has started seven games, including the UCLA win, and entered 12 other games as a substitution. And Geirsson, an outside back, has started 20 out of 21 games this fall.
“That’s showing this year. You can see the development there and it’s awesome to see them grow into players who can really affect the team,” Nagy said.
After being selected by D.C. United in the MLS draft in January, Nagy had a decision to make: Start his professional career or return to Burlington and use the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA for all athletes during COVID.
Nagy, a New Hampshire native, was working through a muscle injury at the time of the draft but decided to run it back at UVM. Seven other teammates also took advantage of the additional year, including Lillie, Morrison, Geirsson and Silveira, America East’s two-time goalie of the year.
“Our best recruiting was bringing those guys back,” Dow said.
Nagy doesn’t want this “dream fall” to end just yet.
“We knew we had much more to offer and that was a huge driving factor to come back. Last year we were disappointed,” Nagy said of the loss to Villanova.
“It was having that desire to come back and leave a legacy here that we knew we could leave.”
Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @aabrami5.
Matchup: Vermont (16-3-2) at Syracuse (16-2-4)
Date: Saturday, Dec. 3
Time: 2 p.m.
Stream: ESPN+
Notes: UVM and Syracuse tied 1-1 in Burlington on Sept. 2. The Catamounts have reached the quarterfinal round for the second time in program history (1989). The winner advances to the College Cup, which will start on Dec. 9 with semifinals in Cary, North Carolina. The title game is slated for Dec. 12.

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