Following an undefeated regular season and a dominant performance in the regional tournament, the Madison College men’s soccer team is on its way to Wichita, Kansas, for its first-ever berth in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national tournament.
The Wolf Pack is seeded #9 despite scoring 68 goals and conceding only 11, winning 18 games and drawing one, and not giving up any goals in the Region 4 tournament.
“We’re going in with the mindset that we have a point to prove, and to put Madison College on the map and make sure that Region 4 is well represented, and do what we can to do to get to the semifinal round,” head coach Logan Frye said before the team’s training session Wednesday.
Madison College will take on fourth-seeded CBCC Essex at 5:30 pm Sunday and defending national champions Northeast Community College at 5:30 pm Monday. The winner of the group will move on to the semifinals on Thursday. The national final will take place next Saturday.
Center back and captain Will Skinner said the team’s success this season is about more than what happens on the field.
“Ethics and teamwork” were the keys to the unbeaten season, Skinner said. “We have three key values that we stick to, which is family, faith and determination.”
Midfielder Hudson Nielsen, the team’s leading goal scorer with 12, described the team as “a group of brothers.” He noted that the team’s three captains are “relentless” and “strong,” which helped form and maintain those bonds.
Nielsen, in his second year in the program, said he could feel at the beginning of the season that this year could be special.
“We knew we had a special group of guys,” he said.
Nielsen said winning at nationals will take “relentlessness and hard work … everything just leads up to this exact moment.”
“We have to come together as a team, and we have to lift to the next level,” Skinner said. “We have to find a way to go to a new place… and get the best out of each and every one of us.”
They’ll also have to recover quickly, playing on back-to-back days.
Fye noted that the team has depth, and hopes that will help make it through the gauntlet of the tournament.
“One player will step up and have a great game… but then the next game, that player may only play a small part in our success,” he said. “We don’t have one guy that has 50% of our goals.”
Skinner said that depth played a role in a highlight of the season – an 8-0 win over Malcolm X College, in which six different players scored for Madison College.
The team has only played from behind in two games for a total of 35 minutes this season.
“That shows it’s a difficult team to beat… if we do [go down], the score’s equalized pretty quickly,” Fye said.
Tournament games are streamed on the NJCAA Network. A pass to watch the full tournament is $30.
