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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Jumbos' success brings senior class full circle

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Sophomore midfielder Zach Halliday and his underclassmen teammates have found their places this season on the first-place men's soccer team.

The men's soccer team finds itself in an unusual position entering its penultimate conference game against Hamilton this Saturday. Since they started playing in the NESCAC in 2000, the Jumbos have never finished above third place in the conference, and have never entered the final weekends of play with the ability to secure first place through winning out.

That is exactly the situation Tufts is in now, however, as the team is currently tied for the league-lead in points with 20, but has played one fewer game than Amherst, who currently sits in second. Tufts can still fall as low as fourth if it loses to Hamilton tomorrow and Bowdoin the following Saturday, as Williams and Wesleyan both sit five points back in the standings with games against the bottom-half of the NESCAC rounding out their schedules.

Despite first place being no guarantee, the fact that the Jumbos are leading the conversation for contenders would shock anybody that followed the team before coach Josh Shapiro took over in 2010. For Shapiro though, the success of his team was in his plans all along.

"The reason you come to Tufts as a coach ... is that you look around and you have these winning traditions all over the place," Shapiro said. "You know that you can come to Tufts and build a winning, prolific program."

Developing the program

Possibly the biggest accomplishment of Shapiro's career at Tufts is his first recruiting class. While he can now sell Tufts because of how consistently his team competes in the NESCAC, when he first came Medford, he inherited a program that had not finished above .500 in the conference since 2001.

"You had to expose really good players at a national level to the potential of what Tufts was," Shapiro said. "I will always be indebted to this group of [seniors] who, on a relatively short-term basis because I didn't get the job until late July, came to visit Tufts and said, 'you know what, coach Shapiro has a vision, we believe in what he's trying to put together, we love Tufts and what it has to offer us. Let's go and turn this place around.'"

That group of recruits has become synonymous with Tufts soccer, as defenders Sam Williams and Peter Lee-Kramer; midfielders Kyle Volpe, Kento Nakamura and Michael Miele; and forwards Gus Santos and Maxime Hoppenot have all made significant contributions on the field throughout their four years in pursuit of the vision Shapiro sold them on as freshmen.

"I think for me and a lot of us, we kind of saw [coming to Tufts] as an opportunity to come in and make a statement, and as young guys, be contributors on a team, and help to turn a program around," Williams said. "Coach Shapiro is a great recruiter, and he did a great job bringing us all together, and bringing us to Tufts. I personally felt like we could make a difference."

Growing pains

Despite the influx of young talent, the Jumbos were still an incomplete team in 2011. The team certainly showed significant strides from previous seasons, going 5-3-2 in the NESCAC and making the conference tournament, but it struggled at times to successfully incorporate a young nucleus of players within the existing senior leadership.

"Frankly, it's a healthier situation," Shapiro said of the amount of upperclassmen on the field this season compared to seasons past. "It's hard for a team when your central figures are younger guys, and your leadership figures are older guys, and they're not playing as much. We finally feel like we're actually balanced the proper way."

Outside of the chemistry issues that can arise from relying on underclassmen, the team also had to deal with on-field issues related to simply playing younger players, and each year the team has benefited from the players on the field having another season of experience under their belts.

"We're seniors now and we have a lot of really experienced guys who have played a lot of games," Williams said. "We have guys with a lot of experience and that really helps."

The cavalry arrives

While the senior class has provided the foundation for the team, it is impossible to build a successful team without depth at each position. With the arrival of each successive class, the Jumbos have inched one step closer to becoming a complete club.

"In the first recruiting class, priority one was to get us athletically on par to compete," Shapiro said. "The junior class was designed more to be those high soccer IQ, technical precision soccer players. In [Jason] Kayne, and Rui [Pinheiro], and Monil [Patel] and [Connor] Schaible you have that, and Connor Brown brings that athletic piece with Talmon Smith. They brought our soccer-playing ability up, because now you have multiple players [in the middle of the field] who can really get it down and play."

While the junior class certainly helped move the team along in each of its first two years, this season has seen multiple players from that class break out in big ways. Brown and Kayne lead the team in points, with 14 and 11, respectively, while Pinhiero leads the team in assists with six. Meanwhile, Patel has not only played strong in the back, but has also blossomed as a set-piece taker, often setting teammates up for easy goals in the box.

"I think Rui, Connor and Jason all took huge steps forward this year in terms of their impacts on the field as well as taking on leadership roles," Hoppenot told the Daily in an email. "Jason and Rui have developed a great partnership and have a real understanding of the game ... Connor Brown has just been extremely dynamic for us this year. He can run forever, and whenever he gets the ball he puts the other team's defense on their heels."

While Shapiro's first two recruiting classes dominate the top of the stat book, it has been his last two classes that have rounded out the team and provided the Jumbos with depth and a diversity of skill.

"Credit to the underclassmen, because they're coming into a team where it [had been] a whole bunch of freshmen and sophomores playing, and [the current underclassmen] may not have necessarily seen their place in that mix," Shapiro said. "These guys were all guys who were convinced of the vision of Tufts being a really important place, and some of them were going to have to be patient. There's a lot of quality pieces there that will, when their chances come, be ready to step up."

Already this season, the impact of having talented bench players and underclassmen has become apparent, with freshman back Matt Zinner stepping in for an injured Schaible, and sophomore midfielder Zach Halliday taking on a big role on the defensive side of the field.

The results finally come

All of the optimism that the Jumbos came into this season with was just as present last year. Instead though, the team took a step back last season, losing in the first round of the NESCAC tournament and missing the NCAA tournament. With most of the main pieces in place from last year to this year, what has been the difference?

For one, the team has finally been relatively injury-free, and when injuries have occurred, there have been players to step right in.

"What this year's team is, that's different than any other team we've had, is really, really deep," Shapiro said. "In the past, when we've had an injury, it's been a blow. You lose Peter last year, it's a blow; you lose Jason for pieces, it's a blow; you lose Gus Santos for pieces, it's a blow. This year, we've managed to pull through all different situations, and ... the mentality of 'next guy up' has worked for us."

That depth has also manifested itself in the starting lineup, with Tufts consistently throwing out an array of offensive and defensive weapons at teams. With Brown, Kayne and Pinhiero playing the best soccer of their careers, and Santos and Hoppenot playing to their usual levels, it has been nearly impossible for opponents to contain every part of the Jumbos' attack.

On the defensive end, Tufts has taken it's usually impressive defense to another level, thanks to both the back line and sophomore keeper Scott Greenwood, who already has six shutouts to his name.

"We pride ourselves on defending as a full team, instead of just letting our back four work," Hoppenot said. "Two of my classmates, Sam and Peter, have always been an extremely solid pairing at centerback, but for a few years it felt like one of them was always getting hurt. This year they've had a really good run of games together so far and are extremely hard to break down."

However, to a certain degree, the success of Tufts can all be brought back to that first class. Without the commitment the seniors made to Tufts, there is a strong possibility that none of the other recruiting classes would have followed. Now the senior class has seen that commitment pay off, in the fact that they are experiencing an unparalleled level of success this season.

"I am deeply appreciative of the guys in this senior class of taking the risk on a first-year coach to say 'we believe in where this place can go, and we are confident enough and determined enough to do it ourselves; we aren't necessarily interested in being a cog in the wheel, we want to revive the wheel,'" Shapiro said. "These guys are ambitious enough to do that, and I will be forever indebted to their confidence in me and what Tufts could be in order to get this thing going."