2012 Boys Soccer Verbal Commitments

[Unregistered]

D1

Colin Sweeney-Revs -High Point
Jay Marchand-Bolts-Holy Cross
Devin Devoy-NE Revs-Northeastern
Oliver White-Nobles-Blazers-Harvard
Eijah Soko-Brooks-Seacoast-Dartmouth
Derrick "nana" Boateng-Bolts-BC
Pablo Espinola-BB&N-Bolts-Yale
Michael Bloom-Phillips Academy-Lafayette
Edward Gonzalez-Berkshire School-American University
Jack Blatchford- FCGB Bolts- URI
Fabio Machado-Drexel
Jack Hilger-Revs- Princeton
PA-Sandwich-UMass
Marco Addonizio-Lynnfield-FC Greater Boston-Bryant
Victor Parra-Bolts-URI

D2

AJ MacDougall-Newburyport-Seacoast-St Anselms
Nick Hoffman-Quabbin-Bentley

D3

Noah Le Gros-Phillips Academy-NEFC-Wesleyan
Eric Nesto-Milton Academy-Blazers-Emory
Ben Toulette-Milton Academy-MPS-Wesleyan
Jonathan Westling-Phillips Academy-SFV-Williams
Liam Gaziano-Rox Latin-MPS-Washington and Lee
Harry Copeland-St. Marks-MPS- St. Lawrence
Sam Hewat-Phillips Academy-Colorado College
Max Montanari-Aztecs-Babson
James Rosso-MPS Crusaders-Babson
Alex Becker-MPS-Ithaca
Chris Walker-Jacks-CC -Hobart
Josh Voto-FC Stars-Tufts
Ben Sia-FC Stars-Babson
Jack Vogel-Nobles-Blazers-Middlebury
Forest Sisk-Lincoln Sudbury-Amherst
Tyler Zon-Noles & Greenough-Swarthmore
Flavio Carvahlo-New Bedford-UMass Dart
Josh Hacunda-Bolts-Brandeis
Adrian Reifsnyder-Bolts-Wesleyan
Kenn Fryer-Bolts-Brandeis
Dan Vogel-Bolts-Colby College
Paulo Lopes-Gloucester-Winchester Sachems-St Joe's ME

Congrats - great schools and hardworking, dedicated players. And congrats to all the coaches who helped get these kids develop. There are probably still 30 - 40 players that are not listed yet or are still in the final stages of the recruiting process. I would guess that there will be 70 or 80 players total on this list after all is said and done. Overall, I would think that is pretty good output from our MA soccer pipeline in a very competitive marketplace.

[Unregistered]

D1

Colin Sweeney-Revs -High Point
Jay Marchand-Bolts-Holy Cross
Devin Devoy-NE Revs-Northeastern
Oliver White-Nobles-Blazers-Harvard
Eijah Soko-Brooks-Seacoast-Dartmouth
Derrick "nana" Boateng-Bolts-BC
Pablo Espinola-BB&N-Bolts-Yale
Michael Bloom-Phillips Academy-Lafayette
Edward Gonzalez-Berkshire School-American University
Jack Blatchford- FCGB Bolts- URI
Fabio Machado-Drexel
Jack Hilger-Revs- Princeton
PA-Sandwich-UMass
Marco Addonizio-Lynnfield-FC Greater Boston-Bryant
Victor Parra-Bolts-URI
Mikey O'Brien- CC-Penn

D2

AJ MacDougall-Newburyport-Seacoast-St Anselms
Nick Hoffman-Quabbin-Bentley
Sam Paul - Winchester High - Sachems FC - Saint Anselm's


D3

Noah Le Gros-Phillips Academy-NEFC-Wesleyan
Eric Nesto-Milton Academy-Blazers-Emory
Ben Toulette-Milton Academy-MPS-Wesleyan
Jonathan Westling-Phillips Academy-SFV-Williams
Liam Gaziano-Rox Latin-MPS-Washington and Lee
Harry Copeland-St. Marks-MPS- St. Lawrence
Sam Hewat-Phillips Academy-Colorado College
Max Montanari-Aztecs-Babson
James Rosso-MPS Crusaders-Babson
Alex Becker-MPS-Ithaca
Chris Walker-Jacks-CC -Hobart
Josh Voto-FC Stars-Tufts
Ben Sia-FC Stars-Babson
Jack Vogel-Nobles-Blazers-Middlebury
Forest Sisk-Lincoln Sudbury-Amherst
Tyler Zon-Noles & Greenough-Swarthmore
Flavio Carvahlo-New Bedford-UMass Dart
Josh Hacunda-Bolts-Brandeis
Adrian Reifsnyder-Bolts-Wesleyan
Kenn Fryer-Bolts-Brandeis
Dan Vogel-Bolts-Colby College
Paulo Lopes-Gloucester-Winchester Sachems-St Joe's

[Unregistered]

According to the Globe, the All-American from CC (MO) is playing at Penn next year.

Playing or attending? Congrats either way.

[Unregistered]

Jonathan Harper-Westwood-NEFC-Dickinson

[Unregistered]

You can look up the two kids on the colby roster, maybe it was two years ago. one kid went to nobles another went to BBN there may also be another one on the team. One parent pranced around assuring @ 14 yo that here son was going to Harvard and bolts was her way in. The point was that Bolts presented their club as a way to Div 1 (specifically Harvard years back) but it is also better way to go to good Div 2 and 3 schools. My additional point is that these kids are good students and they may have gotten into these top level Div 3 schools just on their academics and playing on their very good HS teams. Bolts may have very little to do with them getting into Div 3 schools. Knowing some of these parents (or at least how they brag) they will not qualify for financial aid and will be paying full boat (Colby likes that too). Additionally the large % of kids on bolts have $$ and those parents know that the ISL schools are path to good schools, I don't think they are going to bet on DAP 10 month program, too much risk with the history of where Bolts kids go.

no bolts/bbn player on the colby roster - don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.....

[Unregistered]

#13 and #15 on roster are from nobles and BBN, The Nobles player played for bolts, his mother was the manager for a while. The rivers and brooks school kids may have also played for bolts but I am not 100% sure they went through. the link is colby soccer mens team. I think there was another bolts player that is no longer on roster.

[Unregistered]

I was actually wrong about the #s at colby, sorry about that. #12, #13 and #15 on the colby roster are from the bolts, you can back check on the bolts site alumni. Another player from the bolts that played last year is no longer on the team. That would have made a total of 4 players. Bolts a Div3 team were 7-7-2 I think. I think all my facts are correct, if not a thousand pardens.

[Unregistered]

I was actually wrong about the #s at colby, sorry about that. #12, #13 and #15 on the colby roster are from the bolts, you can back check on the bolts site alumni. Another player from the bolts that played last year is no longer on the team. That would have made a total of 4 players. Bolts a Div3 team were 7-7-2 I think. I think all my facts are correct, if not a thousand pardens.

But what is your point? There are ex-Bolts players playing or rostered at a lot of NESCACs. You may have noticed that there has been a post or two about NESCAC on the site here. And plenty of Mass players in general at NESCACs.

[Unregistered]

Well my point, which I expressed back a few responses, is that Bolts is not as it has been advertised, a place for development for Div 1 players, it is not the elite of the elite. The top third of team go to Div 1 while the rest go to Div 2 and Div 3 schools. I don't think any of the parents, when they joined the bolts, when the boys were 12, thought "This is great my kid has a good shot to go to Colby, I think I will drop 50-60K on bolts training"

Parents can spend where they want but if the team goes to 10 month DAP parents, paying parents will have to make some decisions.

I bet that the players going to those good div 2 and Div 3 schools is more of a function of how good of a student they are than being a Bolt player. ISL schools will make it hard for them to play DAP 10 months.

Looks like 16 players are going to Div 1 schools, just enough for one DAP team in the area not two or three. It also looks like prep school is as important a route as club soccer to get to Div 1 school, thats my point. more forward thinking.

[Unregistered]

Well my point, which I expressed back a few responses, is that Bolts is not as it has been advertised, a place for development for Div 1 players, it is not the elite of the elite. The top third of team go to Div 1 while the rest go to Div 2 and Div 3 schools. I don't think any of the parents, when they joined the bolts, when the boys were 12, thought "This is great my kid has a good shot to go to Colby, I think I will drop 50-60K on bolts training"

Parents can spend where they want but if the team goes to 10 month DAP parents, paying parents will have to make some decisions.

I bet that the players going to those good div 2 and Div 3 schools is more of a function of how good of a student they are than being a Bolt player. ISL schools will make it hard for them to play DAP 10 months.

Looks like 16 players are going to Div 1 schools, just enough for one DAP team in the area not two or three. It also looks like prep school is as important a route as club soccer to get to Div 1 school, thats my point. more forward thinking.

Here is where I think you are a bit off....

I have long maintained that many folks use DAP, and especially Bolts, specifically to go to elite D3s. That's been one of my criticisms....people using DAP for unintended purposes with little to no thought about the DAP "mission." So for many of them, I think a NESCAC placement is exactly what they wanted out of DAP. I do agree with you that the 10 month thing is going to squeeze these folks, and that's one of the only good things I see about the 10 month program.

I think you are wrong that the Bolts are not the elite of the elite. The rub is that the elite of the elite, at least in Mass, is not as elite as some would hope, meaning that a relatively small number of D1 impact players are produced.

I think you would be more accurate about the prep influence if you focused on the repeat-a-year and PG and gap year prep kids. That creates an advantage that perhaps is greater than the advantage of playing DAP, although doing both as some do provides a double advantage (with the end result being [surprise] an elite D3 commitment).

Finally, another thing you are not considering is how difficult is to achieve even elite D3. Some need all of those advantages just to make that level. Sure, a lot of kids can play lower level D3 and may not even need club to do that, but the upper tier of D3 requires a darn good soccer player (and indeed, in some instances the kind of player that perhaps at one point did believe they were D1 material).

[Unregistered]

Here is where I think you are a bit off....

I have long maintained that many folks use DAP, and especially Bolts, specifically to go to elite D3s. That's been one of my criticisms....people using DAP for unintended purposes with little to no thought about the DAP "mission." So for many of them, I think a NESCAC placement is exactly what they wanted out of DAP. I do agree with you that the 10 month thing is going to squeeze these folks, and that's one of the only good things I see about the 10 month program.

I think you are wrong that the Bolts are not the elite of the elite. The rub is that the elite of the elite, at least in Mass, is not as elite as some would hope, meaning that a relatively small number of D1 impact players are produced.

I think you would be more accurate about the prep influence if you focused on the repeat-a-year and PG and gap year prep kids. That creates an advantage that perhaps is greater than the advantage of playing DAP, although doing both as some do provides a double advantage (with the end result being [surprise] an elite D3 commitment).

Finally, another thing you are not considering is how difficult is to achieve even elite D3. Some need all of those advantages just to make that level. Sure, a lot of kids can play lower level D3 and may not even need club to do that, but the upper tier of D3 requires a darn good soccer player (and indeed, in some instances the kind of player that perhaps at one point did believe they were D1 material).

I have actually noticed a lot of kids that looked like D1 material ending up at top (academic & athletic) D3. Truth is that is where they always intended to go. D3 talent does not end up at top D3. Lower level D1 talent ends up there.

[Unregistered]

I have actually noticed a lot of kids that looked like D1 material ending up at top (academic & athletic) D3. Truth is that is where they always intended to go. D3 talent does not end up at top D3. Lower level D1 talent ends up there.

Except of course for the fact that your post makes no sense. If that is who is going higher level D3 then that is what higher level D3 is. Notice that the NESCACs do well but certainly do not dominate the D3 NCAA tourney. Schools like Messiah, Ohio Wesleyan, Calvin, *****burg, and a handful of others regularly do as well and often better, and few would confuse these schools with D1. I do agree with your statement "Truth is that is where they always intended to go".

[Unregistered]

I have actually noticed a lot of kids that looked like D1 material ending up at top (academic & athletic) D3. Truth is that is where they always intended to go. D3 talent does not end up at top D3. Lower level D1 talent ends up there.

Here's another way of putting it. If these kids got admitted and also knew they would be starters at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc then they would be going to those schools. High D3 is better than most think, but D1 also is better than most people think.

[Unregistered]

Here's another way of putting it. If these kids got admitted and also knew they would be starters at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc then they would be going to those schools. High D3 is better than most think, but D1 also is better than most people think.

Ivy league is not lower D1. It's D1 Ivy. That takes way more than just talent. Rare is the kid with any level D1 talent and the stellar grades that it takes to get into one of those schools. The Ivies are a whole different conversation.

[Unregistered]

Ivy league is not lower D1. It's D1 Ivy. That takes way more than just talent. Rare is the kid with any level D1 talent and the stellar grades that it takes to get into one of those schools. The Ivies are a whole different conversation.

Disagree. Kids getting into the NESCACs, especially the upper half, have the academic goods to get in Ivies if they are athletes capable of playing at the Ivies. Ivies are close cousins of the elite D3s. Similar academics but you have to be a better athlete, so the idea that D1 athletes are choosing the elite D3s instead makes little sense.