The men’s soccer team struggled through this past season.  With only one win under their belt, they were not able to make the playoffs.

The team finished their season with an overall record of 1-10-5 and a league record of 1-4-2.  Although the team didn’t finish how they would have liked, head coach Jesse Cormier is looking forward to a new start, with the addition of seven new first-year players next fall.  

Christian Diaz and Evan Hodge of California and Scott Kisling are joining the Catamounts.

Also joining the team is a local Vermonter, Noah Johnson, and another New Englander, Sal Borea, from Connecticut.  

Matt Baker and Malick Camara will represent the south.

“It’s exciting for us.  We have a mixture of incoming freshmen. It’s a group that’s from all over the country; varying in position, size, levels of experience,” head coach Jesse Cormier said.

“We feel like this class is going to be a pretty powerful group, and it will be able to really make a difference for the program,” Cormier said. “We’ve been quite impressed with their quality and their readiness to compete and play at this level.”

Although Cormier is very confident in the incoming class and their skills as players, he also has high hopes that these new players will be successful students at UVM.

“We want to have a group that is more than talent,” Cormier said. “We want to have guys that are competitors, that have work ethic, heart, players who really care about this school and about being good student athletes.”

Looking back on their previous season Cormier recognized that the team unity aspect was missing. 

“I felt like we had our first real difficult season and part of it was that we could have been more unified when things got difficult,” Cormier said. “We didn’t quite have that unity, and confidence to succeed.”

Cormier believes that the new players joining with the returning players could have a positive effect on the team becoming more united. 

“I want them to be a team. Building team elements around trust, communicating openly and honestly together, demanding more from one another, is going to be a challenge,” Cormier said.

With these new players, the men’s soccer team can start fresh this season.    

“Our goal by the end of the season and as we go through our matches, is to be steadfast, be connected and to really be a good team,” Cormier said.