It’s November of 2018. Wake Forest is the top-seeded team in the nation, and they have no intentions of losing a third-round tournament game. Not after three straight playoff losses to Stanford. Not after another ACC regular season title. Not against Akron.

But nonetheless, there is just over one minute to play, and Wake Forest is down 1-0. The Akron Zips are getting ready to celebrate, but Wake Forest is the best attacking team in the country.

They are not done yet.

Omir Fernandez, one of the offense’s leaders, dribbles aggressively into Akron’s box, and drops a perfect pass to Machop Chol, who is all alone by the right post.

Freshman midfielder Aristotle Zarris knows what to do. He’s been here before. The entire defense is scrambling toward Chol, and Zarris sneaks behind them to the far post.

Chol collects himself and delivers a perfect pass across the goal to the foot of Zarris, who easily sends the ball into the net.

It’s 1-1. Zarris is the hero.

Except. . . He’s not. The linesman’s flag is up. He was called offside. The goal is disallowed.

Zarris sprints towards the linesman in disbelief, wagging his finger back and forth, but it doesn’t matter. The game ends 1-0. Wake Forest sees its season cut short, again.

“Usually, I don’t let my emotions get the best of me,” Zarris said. “But in that time, in that place, I saw our whole season go away. . . Just like that.”

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Soccer did not always dominate Zarris’ life in the way it does now. Neither of his parents played soccer, and neither of his parents played sports beyond high school.

Growing up in Indiana, he played baseball, flag football, basketball and soccer.

“My parents wanted to expose me to every sport,” Zarris said. “I remember I played soccer during the fall, but during the summer, it was all baseball. Around age 12, I realized I needed to pick one.”

Once Zarris picked soccer, he quickly saw that he had made the right choice.

By his freshman year of high school, Zarris was a member of an MLS academy with Real Salt Lake. To accommodate the schedule that his new club demanded, his whole family moved to the west coast with him.

Shortly after that, he got some of the best news of his life.

“During my freshman year of high school, I was playing with RSL, and after a tournament my coach got a call from the United States U-16 team,” Zarris said. “They wanted me to come to Holland to play in a tournament.”

After he joined the national team’s ranks, college scouts took notice. Zarris was contacted by numerous schools, including top programs like UCLA, Stanford and Wake Forest. At the same time, the constant travel and never-ending season began to take a toll on him.

“It has been different for him,” said Zarris’ father, Olympus. “He grew up quickly being on planes and going to different countries. He’s been on his own more or less since his junior year.”

But Zarris kept pushing, and he kept getting more recognition. Halfway through high school, Zarris joined the academy of the MLS club LA Galaxy, and during his time there he trained with first team players like soccer legend Zlatan Ibrahimović.

Everything was falling into place for Zarris to cruise to a college scholarship with a top program.

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In January of 2017, Zarris traveled to Florida with the United States U-18 team to scrimmage against the U-17 squad. For the first time, his father would have the opportunity to watch him play with the national team.

During the last five minutes of the match, Zarris tracked back to defend a break, and a teammate pushed an opposing player off the ball, causing him to fall onto Zarris’ leg.

“It was brutal,” Olympus Zarris said. “When he went down, he took his hand and was pounding the ground, and he was a kid who would ride any tackle and just pop back up.”

The team’s trainer examined Zarris and did not have the heart to break the news to him, telling him that it could have just been a hyperextension. When Zarris went to the doctor, he heard the truth.

Torn ACL. Torn MCL. One year of recovery ahead.

“I started to panic, and I completely broke down,” Zarris said. “I was like, why is this happening?”

For the first time, Zarris slowed down. For years, everything moved forward. For years, soccer was more than a game. It was everything.

“It helped him put some perspective on everything,” Olympus Zarris said. “You’re young, you’re invincible, and then something like that happens, and it threatens everything you have been working for.”

The potential ephemerality of his career began to sink in. Throughout all the hours on the field, the hours in the gym, the hours watching film, Zarris never imagined everything coming to an end.

During his rehab, Zarris got to spend a full year with his family for the first time in a long, long time and recognized that he had been taking soccer for granted.

“I almost don’t want to say this, but it was a good thing,” Zarris said. “I think I was a little burned out, since out of 12 months every year I had a one-month break. There was not time for anything else in my life.”

Academics, family and normal high school experiences fell by the wayside for a long time, and during his time off the field, Zarris reevaluated. He would choose soccer again, but with a drastically evolved outlook.

“It’s still the number one thing in my life, but I definitely look at it differently,” he said. “I look at it like something that can be taken away from me. . . Just like that.”

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Zarris thought he would stay on the west coast for college soccer, but Wake Forest head coach Bobby Muuss called one day and asked him to visit before his final decision.

When Zarris walked around campus and saw the fans at Spry Stadium during an ACC match, he reconsidered and eventually committed to Wake Forest.

Just a few months after he finished recovering from his knee injury, Zarris started training with the Wake Forest team, and over the course of his 2018 season, he had no problem adjusting to college soccer.

He fit like a glove in the Wake Forest system, collecting five goals, five assists and more than 1200 minutes in his freshman season.

“He’s a really funny kid, and he loves to joke around,” said Sam Raben, a four-year starter at Wake Forest. “He wants to help the team no matter what the cost, which is great to see from a freshman.”

While he’s kept soccer at the top of his personal hierarchy, Zarris feels the demands put on student-athletes. He tries to get eight hours of sleep every night, but between class and practice, it can be hard to find time for himself.

“There are things that I miss out on in college, since soccer plays this huge role in my life,” Zarris said. “Being an athlete is not for everyone, but it’s crazy, stressful and fun.”

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After the team’s loss to Akron, Zarris found himself in a familiar place. During his first season, he grew accustomed to the cycle of practice, class and games, but with the playoff loss came the sluggish liminal space between seasons.

“For some of us, the main reason we came here is athletics,” Zarris said. “If that gets taken away from us, we think, what are we doing here?”

But Zarris knows how to stop and reflect, and he knows that this game he plays will not last forever. At the drop of hat, it could all slip away.

Just like that.

 

I wish I had more to report, but I am currently awaiting an email response from my athlete to do an interview.

His schedule is beginning to fill up more as the team begins its NCAA tournament push, so his time is limited, and we have had some trouble finding time to meet in the past. Once he gets back to me, we will set up a time to do an interview this week.

Aristotle has had a great season as a freshman, so there should be plenty of soccer-related things to discuss. Coming into a top program and immediately finding one’s place on the roster is uncommon, so I am curious to see how he has viewed his success.

I hope to draw more interesting quotes from him than just typical athlete platitudes, but if he is uncooperative, I plan on asking him who he thinks would be the best teammate/coach/family member of his to interview for more perspective.

When I was 13 years old, several of my friends and I were coerced into joining the middle school wrestling team.

Aside from the occasional living room throwdown with my two younger brothers, I had little experience with combat sports. However, the defensive coordinator of our middle school football team ceaselessly attempted to recruit his football players for the wrestling team, and I eventually relented.

This defensive coordinator and wrestling coach, the ever-quotable Buck Shiver, embodied the machismo of yesteryear in the most charming ways imaginable. He was roughly 65 years old at the time, but he possessed what many would call “old-man strength.” He was sinewy, bald and goofy with a southern accent that provided excellent impersonation material for my team.

Buck played linebacker at Georgia Tech, and his medium height and advanced age belied his strength. To this day, I would pick him to win a fight against most 20-somethings who cut their teeth in the cushy, air-conditioned gym environment of today. Despite his hard-ass background, though, he always treated us kindly and understood the low-stakes nature of middle school athletics.

All this to say, we respected the man, so when he insisted that we join the ranks of singlet-clad teenagers, we did so without rational levels of hesitation.

At 13, no one would have classified me as physically imposing. I weighed about 85 pounds soaking wet and consisted primarily of skin and bones. Fortunately, unlike football, wrestling did not force me to square off against pubescent, 170-pound giants, as the sport divides its athletes into weight classes, which helped level the playing field for me. Couple that with the padded mats, and I believed I could avoid injury or humiliation.

Unfortunately, this was a miscalculation.

Despite my diminutive stature, I would not have classified myself as “soft.” I did not fit the archetype of the psychopathic small kid with a chip on his shoulder, constantly picking fights to prove his toughness, but I never complained about getting crushed on occasion.

Wrestling, though, really takes a toll on a young man. The matches themselves were exhausting, and new wrestlers, myself included, inevitably had their asses handed to them in the early going.

Eventually, competitors even less impressive than I allowed me to notch a couple of wins, and my confidence began to grow. That is, until the fateful evening that cut my wrestling career short.

It was a standard wrestling meet, and when I checked the schedule, I saw that I was wrestling a young man named Timmy.

After some investigation, I visually identified Timmy as a rare 85-pounder who somehow managed to appear fat. He was built like a fire hydrant, and facially, he resembled Ham from “The Sandlot.”

When Timmy and I finally squared off on the mat, I was caught off guard by how low his center of gravity was, and thus we spent the short match tugging back and forth at each other from a standing position. It was from this standing position that I lost my balance.

When I felt myself beginning to tumble, I instinctively outstretched my right arm to break my fall; instead of breaking my fall, all 85 pounds of Timmy’s condensed body landed atop my locked arm, hyperextending it and breaking my elbow.

In this moment, as I yelled and writhed in pain on the mat, I found myself deeply loathing Buck Shiver’s salesmanship abilities. I loathed his abilities even more when I made a frigid, humiliating trip to the ER in a glorified leotard during the dead of winter.

When the ER nurse asked me if I had come from a gymnastics event, my pride plummeted to all-time lows, and I realized that returning to the wrestling mat no longer interested me.

During my time in a cast—time that spilled into lacrosse season, initially deepening my frustration—I began to analyze the benefits of my situation.

For one, I got to ride out wrestling season on the sideline with a legitimate excuse. But more importantly, I learned to take myself less seriously.

In middle school, nearly everyone feels insecure most of the time, and nearly every misstep feels like the end of the world. This moment gave me an opportunity to suffer through what felt like a disastrously embarrassing event and come out unaffected on the other side. . . If I don’t count my elbow, which still clicks today.

Without Buck Shiver’s deeply convincing wrestling propaganda, it could have taken me much longer to understand the values of self-deprecation, and I would still be equipped with the boring, silent elbow of a kid never forced to go in public wearing a singlet.

I am profiling Aristotle Zarris, a freshman midfielder on the men’s soccer team. Zarris wasted no time getting involved in his rookie year, and he has become one of the team’s key contributors.

His success was not unexpected, as Zarris entered Wake Forest as a highly-touted athlete, considered a four-star prospect and ranked No. 42 in the nation by TopDrawerSoccer.

This season, Zarris has scored four goals and has five assists. He also has played significant minutes in important ACC match-ups all year.

I have been in contact with Aristotle, and he is completely open to working with me for this project. As of now, I plan on asking him who he thinks I should interview about his pre-college career, but I, personally, believe that I should reach out to one of his parents and a high school or club coach.

I also would also like to ask Aristotle who of his teammates would be best to interview for this article, as I would like to get a glimpse into his personal life from someone with whom he spends a lot of time.

On the surface, a 4-2 victory over High Point for the Wake Forest men’s soccer team appeared to be the bounce back the team needed. After seeing their offense, which ranks first in the nation in scoring, sputter in a 2-0 shutout loss at Syracuse, responding with four goals in the following game could only be construed as positive—but it is the defense, not the offense, that could hold this team back in 2018.

Beginning 20 minutes into their match against High Point, Wake Forest did what Wake Forest has done all season: score goals. Freshman Aristotle Zarris and sophomore Omir Fernandez each found the back of the net within two minutes of each other, and the Demon Deacons looked poised to cruise for the rest of the match.

This team’s lone Achilles’ heel in 2018, however, reared its ugly head when High Point capitalized on two fast break opportunities in the 31^st and 36^th minutes to even the game at 2-2. High Point rarely pressured the Wake Forest defense for long stretches, as the Demon Deacons controlled possession throughout the match, but two brief instances of defensive misalignment and disorganization were enough to quickly spoil the team’s lead.

“If you take out a couple of those mistakes—and I know they’re big because they cost [us] goals—the game was a pretty good performance,” said head coach Bobby Muuss after the match.

Coach Muuss correctly assesses the quality of the performance against High Point from a holistic perspective, but these types of defensive “mistakes” have been a trend this year.

In 2017, Wake Forest ranked fifth in the nation in goals allowed per game at 0.547. This season, their goals allowed per game has ballooned to 0.986, which ranks 58^th in the nation. The offense’s dominance successfully masks Wake Forest’s unusual proclivity for allowing high goal totals to inferior competition, but at some point in the season, these issues must be nipped in the bud.

The defense remains prone to moments of porousness, especially in otherwise successful matches, and these short lapses in concentration could be the difference between the Demon Deacons winning their first title since 2007 or falling short in another College Cup campaign.

“When we are up 2-0 like that, we just need to stay with the way we played through the first 25 minutes,” said team captain and senior defender Sam Raben. “If we can stay focused, in the end, that kind of stuff does not need to happen.”

Perhaps the issue does indeed stem solely from focus. Wake Forest clearly possesses players talented enough to tally more clean sheets, but lesser competition might not inspire enough fear to command 90 minutes of the defense’s attention.

At the end of the day, the players are human beings, and playing an average opponent on a Tuesday night in front of smaller crowds causes the mind to stray from the all-consuming, heart-pounding focus that accompanies more meaningful matches.

Against Indiana, Clemson and Virginia Tech, some of the best competition Wake Forest faced this season, the defense allowed a combined total of two goals. In three games against weaker opponents—ETSU, Syracuse and High Point—Wake Forest allowed a combined total of six goals.

The sample size might be too small to say with certainty that the defense will trend upward or downward through the rest of the season. Muuss and his players seem to believe, with good reason, that these issues are not due to a lack of talent or subpar tactics, but should the defense squander a 2-0 lead when the lights get brighter in November and December, hindsight will make allowing these deficiencies to fester look even worse.

 

After riding high all season long, the Wake Forest men’s soccer team suffered its first misstep, a 2-0 loss over the weekend at Syracuse. Now, the team must quickly turn around and prepare for a weekday game against in-state opponent High Point, and though the Panthers rarely face top competition, they have managed a 10-1 record this season.

“Good teams rebound well,” said senior midfielder and captain Brad Dunwell. “We had our slipup, and now we can bounce back and find our form better than we did against Syracuse.”

Last season, High Point forced the Demon Deacons into double overtime before Wake Forest managed a 1-0 victory. In September of last season, Wake Forest stumbled against a similarly weak opponent, Georgia State, and lost a midweek matchup in disappointing fashion.

Head coach Bobby Muuss told his players after the loss that he “slept better than he had all season,” insinuating that, in some ways, losing their undefeated season came as a relief.

Wake Forest’s offense, which leads the country in points per game, was shut out for the first time in 2018 against Syracuse. A return to form tonight could be aided by forward Justin McMaster, who is eyeing a return from an Achilles injury.

Regardless of who is healthy tonight, Muuss expects a strong performance from his team: “We don’t talk about injuries, we just get on with it,” he said. “You give [the injured player] a hug, wish him the best and put the next guy in.”

Fortunately for the Demon Deacons, Louisville also lost over the weekend, so Wake Forest still controls its own destiny in the ACC, and the Syracuse loss could prove the lone hiccup during an otherwise immaculate season.

“We are going to see what we are made of by how we bounce back and deal with adversity,” Muuss said.

After spending a significant portion of the 2017 season as the nation’s top team, the Wake Forest Men’s Soccer team suffered a third-straight NCAA tournament loss to Stanford. The Demon Deacons also lost several key players to MLS, including Ema Twumasi and Jon Bakero. Though expectations for the Wake Forest program are always higher than most, a slight step back in 2018 would not have come as a huge surprise considering the youth of the 2018 roster.

The Demon Deacons, however, have not skipped a beat in 2018, and they currently find themselves 9-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country.

In part, their success depended on new recruits coming into their own quickly. The 2018 Wake Forest recruiting class ranked No. 2 in the nation according to TopDrawerSoccer, and the freshman have lived up to the hype.

Freshmen forward Kyle Holcomb, freshman midfielder Aristotle Zarris and freshman midfielder Isaiah Parente have combined for 15 points this season, allowing the Demon Deacons to transition smoothly with their new-look roster.

The freshmen have not been the only contributors in 2018, though, as junior midfielder Bruno Lapa has come into his own in his larger role on the team. Lapa currently leads the ACC in points with 22, and he ranks 10^th in the nation in goals per game.

Wake Forest’s offensive dominance cannot be understated. They rank first in the ACC in scoring offense by a wide margin at 3.11 goals per game—UNC and Duke are tied for second at 1.857 goals per game—and their 3.11 average is also good for first in the nation.

The Demon Deacons also rank third in the ACC in goals allowed at 0.80, and their average goal margin tops the ACC at 2.40.

On paper, this team looks invincible, and on the field, the results have been similarly convincing. Their remarkable 2018 campaign began with a 2-1 victory over #2 Indiana in the season opener, which silenced questions about whether they would be able to cope with the amount of roster turnover they suffered.

Since the opener, the Demon Deacons added two more signature wins against #8 NC State and #16 Virginia Tech, two top ACC opponents.

Wake Forest easily handled NC State 3-0 on the back of two goals from sophomore midfielder Omir Fernandez, who ranks second in the ACC in points.

Their 2-1 win at Virginia Tech, though scrappier than the NC State win, also highlighted the breakthroughs of Lapa and Fernandez, who each scored in the conference victory.

Despite the inexperience of their roster and the loss of multiple key players, the Demon Deacons look as poised as ever to push for their first NCAA Championship since 2007.

 

I will be covering Aristotle Zarris, a freshman midfielder on the Wake Forest Men’s Soccer team.

Zarris entered Wake Forest as a highly-touted player, listed as a four-star prospect and ranked No. 42 in the nation by TopDrawerSoccer.

His pedigree did not go unnoticed, as he spent time with two separate MLS youth academies, playing with Real Salt Lake during the 2015-16 season and LA Galaxy from 2016-18.

Through eight games in a Wake Forest uniform, Zarris has scored two goals and collected one assist. He has also seen significant playing time for a freshman, and he figures to be an important part of the team moving forward.

Below are the outside individuals I plan to interview:

Bobby Muuss, head coach

One of Aristotle’s teammates, preferably a senior like Sam Raben or Brad Dunwell

Either or both of Aristotle’s parents to get a glimpse of his early career

After postponing the game due to Hurricane Florence, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (2-4) and William & Mary Tribe (3-2) finally faced off under sunny skies in what was a back-and-forth contest on Wednesday… for about two minutes.

The Demon Deacons burst out of the gate, scoring early and often, keeping their foot on the gas and never looking back, en route to 4-1 victory over the Tribe.

Wake Forest opened the scoring on a penalty corner with a rocket off the stick of defender Anne van Hoof just two and a half minutes into the game, and van Hoof followed up less than two minutes later on another penalty corner with a weak, looping shot that froze the goalie and bounced into the net.

“I can either defend goals, or I can score them, so that is great,” said van Hoof, laughing. “You cannot do better than both, right?”

Not only did the Demon Deacons find the net twice in the first half, they also dominated possession. The ball stayed on Wake Forest’s offensive half for most of the first period, and the Demon Deacons consistently made incisive passes and created offensive openings in transition.

In the second half, the Demon Deacons again perfectly executed a penalty corner for their third goal off the game, when Megan Anderson found the back of the net with a hip-height shot that easily beat Tribe goalkeeper Kimi Jones.

“I think that is one of our fortes this season,” said Jen Averill, Wake Forest head coach, about her team’s penalty corners. “We have really quality players around the circle edge and veteran players, and quite honestly, this season, I am letting them call [penalty corner plays]. You have to love kids who say, ‘If I score, great, and if I don’t, I’ll own it.’”

Midfielder Elisha Evans delivered Wake Forest’s flashiest goal of the game, when she received a pass in an awkward position at the top of the circle edge from veteran midfielder Laia Vancells. Evans collected herself and fired a backhanded shot across her body that sneaked into the top corner, just below the crossbar, to give the Demon Deacons a 4-0 lead.

The Tribe adjusted at halftime, and in the second period they managed to maintain more possession, find their shape and force Wake Forest back into its defensive half. Their offensive pressure eventually resulted in a goal from Tribe midfielder Christie van de Kamp, who slapped the ball in from close range after it trickled away from a scrum of players.

“We gave up two pretty quick goals, and we knew the corner options, but knowing them and stopping them are two very different things,” said Tess Ellis, William & Mary head coach. “We were always used to beating the so-called big teams by coming from behind and sneaking a win, so it’s just about changing the culture of the team and knowing that we can lead and go for it.”

Wake Forest can now look ahead to a pivotal ACC matchup against the No. 7 Louisville Cardinals, who will travel to Kentner Stadium on Friday, Sept. 23. The Demon Deacons opened ACC play with a loss against No. 13 Boston College, who came from behind for a 4-3 victory over Wake Forest in double overtime.

Their decisive victory over the Tribe could galvanize the Demon Deacons into flirting with an upset and a bounce-back conference victory when Louisville comes to town.

I will be covering the Wake Forest field hockey game on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 3:30 p.m. The Demon Deacons will face the visiting William & Mary Tribe in a match-up that was rescheduled due to Hurricane Florence. The Tribe currently hold a record of 3-2, and the Demon Deacons have a 2-4 record. Between the two teams, Wake Forest holds the only win over a ranked opponent, which was a 3-2 upset of the Michigan Wolverines.