Nick Hinds’ spin move in the waning minutes of the second half counted for nothing.
Yet the dazzling moment of improvisation from the University of Akron freshman seemed to foreshadow the exciting soccer that could lie ahead as the Zips’ young talent comes of age.
That doesn’t necessarily mean next season. It could mean the next four weeks.
During the Zips’ 2-1 victory over Buffalo on Sunday in the championship game of the Mid-American Conference Tournament at FirstEnergy Stadium, there was the sense of a passing of the torch. But those initiating the handoff aren’t ready to make the connection.
With their fourth consecutive victory, the Zips capped an erratic, often disappointing season with the perfect blend of young and old. Members of the 2016 recruiting class, ranked second in the nation by TopDrawerSoccer.com, combined with experienced veterans like seniors Adam Najem and Brad Ruhaak and juniors Stuart Holthusen and Sam Gainford.
Hinds, a defender, scored both goals on Sunday, while freshman forward/midfielder Marcel Zajac contributed one in Friday’s semifinal rout of Western Michigan. Hinds and freshman Jonathan Lewis, both from Plantation, Fla., showed a growing chemistry in their passing as they nearly teamed for a Lewis goal before the match against Buffalo was 13 minutes old. In the final, Najem was all over the field, starting the UA attack and helping Ruhaak and the other defenders snuff Buffalo’s desperate attempts to tie the game in the last 27 minutes.
Afterward, as the unranked and likely unseeded Zips look forward to Monday’s 1 p.m. selection show and possibly a home game on Thursday, their buzzword going into UA’s 31st NCAA Tournament appearance was cohesion.
“It seems like we’re hitting the stride at the right time with a lot of these young guys coming in that we rely on,” said Ruhaak, who came to UA as a walk-on from Copley High School. “New to college soccer, they’ve worked their tails off to be ready for this moment. It seems things are clicking at the right time and the cohesion is right.”
Ruhaak said some of that feeling comes from players getting to know each other, some of it from UA coach Jared Embick getting a better handle on how to use his talent most effectively. There’s also a growing spirit of camaraderie.
“Everyone’s fighting for each other now,” Najem said. “We have a type of cohesion that’s going to take us far in the tournament.”
Embick defined the key term more in terms of the Zips’ play on the field.
“The guys have always gotten along together,” Embick said. “What we’ve been missing is the right type of cohesion on the field with the mix in the lineup. Right now we’ve got the right balance. They’re playing their game and supporting each other.”
The Zips (12-5-3) needed 16 games before they found the right blend of young and old. It wasn’t until a double-overtime victory over Grand Canyon on Nov. 2 that it began to come together. The turning point may have been a 3-0 victory over Western Michigan on Nov. 5. The Zips have outscored their last four opponents 12-3.
Winning an NCAA title as an unseeded team is not unprecedented. UC-Santa Barbara pulled it off in 2006, starting the season 7-6 before going on a 10-1-1 roll. In 2011, unseeded UNC-Charlotte reached the NCAA final, defeating defending champion UA 1-0 in the third round before falling to top-ranked North Carolina in the championship.
Embick was former UA coach Caleb Porter’s right-hand man in 2011. Zips assistant Leo Chappel held the same post at UCSB in 2006. They know what to tell the team going forward.
But to reach the College Cup for the second consecutive year, the Zips will need the kids and the wily vets to play at the level they’ve reached the past two weeks. They will need the regulars who for years have withstood the pressure as opponents try to chip away at their leads. They will need the budding stars who can run like the wind and spin on a dime.
“It was just something on the spot I thought of,” Hinds said of the move that was impossible not to notice.
A thought that says much about the Zips’ promising future, before and after the torch is passed.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.