Kramer sends a ball deep to Pinheiro. Pinheiro pushes the ball forward to Hoppenot along the sideline. Hoppenot cuts to the middle of the field and scorches one past the opposing keeper for a goal.
It's the Princeton connection.
Sophomore midfielder RuiPinheiro, junior tri-captain forward MaximeHoppenot and junior defenseman Peter Lee-Kramer, along with freshman walk-on midfielder Zach Halliday, make up a contingent of Jumbos that either grew up in Princeton or played at Princeton Day School. Together, they have contributed 12 of Tufts' 42 points this season.
As the men's soccer program has blossomed over the past three years, the Princeton pipeline has played a critical role in the team's success. Though it may seem like head coach Josh Shapiro has been funneling players from Princeton into his program since the start of his tenure in 2010, his recruiting presence in the area was more of a chain reaction.
"I got to know Peter [Lee-Kramer] ... at the camp I worked at Georgetown," Shapiro said. "Sort of through Peter, we learned about Max [Hoppenot], and through Max we learned about Rui [Pinheiro]. And through Max and Rui, we learned about Zach [Halliday]."
For Shapiro, the event that started the Princeton chain reaction was the discovery of Lee-Kramer, the only player from the area on whom Shapiro was initially focusing. At the time, Shapiro was building his first recruiting class at Tufts, which was enough to hook Lee-Kramer.
"I knew every single person through high school soccer or club soccer, because they were all from Massachusetts or New Jersey," Lee-Kramer said. "I basically chose Tufts because I knew my recruiting class."
Although Shapiro learned about Hoppenot through his recruiting of Lee-Kramer, he did not know that the two were best friends growing up. Ultimately, that friendship played a significant role in their matriculation to Tufts.
"Peter and I were in contact a lot our senior falls about college and where we were going to play," Hoppenot said. "One day, as I'm making my final choices in schools, he calls me and tells me he just got off the phone with coach Shapiro and he had committed. So I said, 'Okay, I'll call him now too.'"
The pair teamed up to play in every game of the 2011 season, with Lee-Kramer starting 11 games at defensive back and Hoppenot finishing second on the team in goals with six.
But even considering all of their contributions on the field, they have arguably made a bigger impact off the field.
Following the 2011 season, Shapiro - who came into the job with only his remaining connections from Georgetown - relied on players like Hoppenot and Lee-Kramer to aid in his recruiting efforts.
"I encourage the players on my team to let me know about the good players out there," Shapiro said. "I trust my guys to say, 'Hey, this is a really good player on my team, I like him as a person, and I think he'd fit well here.'"
Shapiro not only utilizes his players to find recruits, but also to serve as examples for the younger players on the team.
"The fact is, if you come through a program and you're an older, reputable guy, you are going to be somebody that younger players look up to," Shapiro said. "When you're dealing with all these kids that have Div. I stars in their eyes, sometimes the best thing to help temper that is an upperclassman who's come from the same school, telling them, 'Hey, this is still pretty darn good.'"
The 2012 recruiting class brought in a new wave of talent, including another Princeton product in Pinheiro. The midfielder largely attributed his decision to attend Tufts to the presence of Hoppenot and Lee-Kramer.
"[Peter, Max and I] were all good friends, and I saw that as a positive about coming to Tufts," Pinheiro told the Daily in an email. "It was nice to have friends who had been in the same position I was just a year before. I was able to draw from their experiences, and that helped me make my decision."
Shapiro does not have any specific plans regarding his future recruiting efforts, other than to continue scouting a wide range of locations. If the talent is present in Princeton, the trend could certainly continue.
"We want to have a really diverse team, but at the end of they day, I'm not overly concerned with having a player from every state in the union," Shapiro said. "I just want to have the best players who we can be exposed to, and for the last couple years, there's been a number of them from Jersey."
