Senior Night
October 22, 2010 10:25 AM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University men’s soccer team will play Seton Hall on Saturday evening in a game that that has been designated as “Senior Night” for Dan Hagey, Zach Johnson and Alex Silva.
The trio has played in a combined 168 games, making 127 starts and have logged nearly 13,000 minutes, while contributing to 35 shutouts.
Hagey and Johnson were part of WVU’s 2007 team that went 14-6-2 and was ranked as high as No. 5 at one point during the season. The team also made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to No. 1 Wake Forest.
Being part of that game is one of Hagey’s more memorable moments from his time at WVU.
“Going to the Sweet 16 my freshman year and just winning an NCAA game and then making it that far was definitely a rush,” Hagey recalled. “We ultimately lost to Wake Forest who won it that year, but it was a great experience.”
Since that season Hagey has battled injuries, missing games in each of the past three seasons. He hopes to be back this for Saturday’s matchup with Seton Hall after missing the last 12 games with his third knee injury in three years.
“It has been about seven weeks since I last played and I feel great, I’m really excited for this weekend and to hopefully get some minutes on senior day and help the team win,” Hagey said.
However, just because he is injured doesn’t mean that he has stopped reinforcing the will to play hard into his teammates.
“It is no fun being out with injuries and I tell them to play every game as if it is your last game because you never know what is going to happen,” Hagey said. “I just tell the guys to keep going. If they are struggling or something I tell them that it is a gift to be playing because there are so many people in the country who want to be in their shoes.”
The Ephrata, Pa., native, will be graduating with a major in advertising, and as a BIG EAST Academic All-Star and member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Hagey has understood the importance of time management.
“Before I came here I was a procrastinator, I was always doing stuff at the last minute, but here it makes you stay on top of things because of study hall hours and things like that,” Hagey said. “They really push you to get everything done school wise so you can focus on soccer.”
After graduation, Hagey will be looking for a job and hopes to land one in a big advertising firm helping the firm’s creative team.
Silva is one of the most technical players on the team and has played in 50 games with five goals and three assists for 13 points. Three of his five goals have been game-winning goals.
The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil native feels that the opportunity to come to America has taught him the most about life.
“I have learned a lot being here and how to be productive with studying and being a student-athlete as well and learning how to manage my time with sports and academics,” Silva said. “It is a really good experience that I am going to have for the rest of my life and I am never going to forget coming to Morgantown, a different place and a different style of life. It has been a good experience that I am going to be able to tell everybody about.”
A BIG EAST Academic All-Star and a member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Silva is most proud of the degree in athletic coaching education that he will be receiving, something that most people in his home country do not have.
“It is a pleasure to be here and to study at an American university and get a degree. Not a lot of people have that opportunity back in Brazil, and I am very fortunate to be here and be studying to be able to get a degree,” Silva said. “It is going to help me a lot in my life and it is going to help me whenever I start working.”
What is the most impressive about Silva has been his apprehension of the English language, a language he barely knew when he first arrived at West Virginia.
“I just started learning and in the beginning I did not think I was ever going to be able to learn it because I thought it was very hard,” Silva said. “I just kept working and kept studying and I worked very hard on my own to learn it. When I came here that is when I learned the most.”
Silva’s fondest memory of West Virginia men’s soccer was his first season when he scored the lone goal in a win against then-ranked No. 7 Connecticut. The goal was the first of his career.
“That is the best moment I have had. It was amazing, I felt very good. We beat them on national television, I played well and the team played well. It was a great effort by everyone in front of 4,000 people at UConn.”
Silva will finish up with classes in the summer and then decide whether he wants to stay in the United States or head back home to Brazil.
Johnson is one of the most prolific goaltenders in WVU history with 35 career shutouts, only two away from the record of 37 set by Nick Noble in 2006.
The Lumberton, N.J., native was the 2008 BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Year and is currently the all-time WVU leader in career goals-against with an average of 0.63. Johnson also is on pace to break the total goalkeeper minutes for a career and currently stands at 6,958 minutes played and has played a total of 73 games. In all-time saves Johnson is fourth with 267.
“I think down the line it will be something that means more to me than it does right now,” Johnson said of his accolades. “Right now I am concentrating on getting the team in the NCAA Tournament and deep into the BIG EAST Tournament. It will hit me once everything is done and I look back on it. It has a lot to do with the defenses I had in front of me and they deserve most of the credit for the awards that I have received.”
As a standout student-athlete who is a BIG EAST Academic All-Star, as well as a member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Johnson has the support system at West Virginia to thank.
“Managing my time was a big challenge I had to face, but I was able to do it with the help from the support staff we have here,” Johnson said. “Ehren (Green) and Stephanie (White) have really helped me out a lot and have made sure that I stay on track and have helped keep things going in the right direction.”
An industrial engineer major, Johnson has already had numerous job interviews but is hoping to first pursue a career in the game he loves.
“I am going to give MLS (Major League Soccer) a shot and see if I have the skills to go to the next level and if that does not work out, I have a fallback option with engineering,” Johnson said. “Right now the plan is to see what the MLS has to offer.”
As for his time at West Virginia, Johnson’s most memorable moment was when then-No. 1 ranked UConn came to town his freshman season and Johnson made four huge saves to preserve a 1-0 victory on national television.
“I had a really strong performance that game and we ended up beating them,” Johnson recalls. “That game will be forever in my head as one of the best I had here.”
Going into the last week of the season, Johnson is looking for his team to make a mark in the team’s final regular season games and make a push for postseason play.
“These are super important and must-win games,” Johnson said. “We need to take all these games with the mentality that it is one and done. This is something we need to take game-by-game and hopefully run the table from here on out.”
The trio has played in a combined 168 games, making 127 starts and have logged nearly 13,000 minutes, while contributing to 35 shutouts.
Hagey and Johnson were part of WVU’s 2007 team that went 14-6-2 and was ranked as high as No. 5 at one point during the season. The team also made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to No. 1 Wake Forest.
Being part of that game is one of Hagey’s more memorable moments from his time at WVU.
“Going to the Sweet 16 my freshman year and just winning an NCAA game and then making it that far was definitely a rush,” Hagey recalled. “We ultimately lost to Wake Forest who won it that year, but it was a great experience.”
Since that season Hagey has battled injuries, missing games in each of the past three seasons. He hopes to be back this for Saturday’s matchup with Seton Hall after missing the last 12 games with his third knee injury in three years.
“It has been about seven weeks since I last played and I feel great, I’m really excited for this weekend and to hopefully get some minutes on senior day and help the team win,” Hagey said.
However, just because he is injured doesn’t mean that he has stopped reinforcing the will to play hard into his teammates.
“It is no fun being out with injuries and I tell them to play every game as if it is your last game because you never know what is going to happen,” Hagey said. “I just tell the guys to keep going. If they are struggling or something I tell them that it is a gift to be playing because there are so many people in the country who want to be in their shoes.”
The Ephrata, Pa., native, will be graduating with a major in advertising, and as a BIG EAST Academic All-Star and member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Hagey has understood the importance of time management.
“Before I came here I was a procrastinator, I was always doing stuff at the last minute, but here it makes you stay on top of things because of study hall hours and things like that,” Hagey said. “They really push you to get everything done school wise so you can focus on soccer.”
After graduation, Hagey will be looking for a job and hopes to land one in a big advertising firm helping the firm’s creative team.
Silva is one of the most technical players on the team and has played in 50 games with five goals and three assists for 13 points. Three of his five goals have been game-winning goals.
The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil native feels that the opportunity to come to America has taught him the most about life.
“I have learned a lot being here and how to be productive with studying and being a student-athlete as well and learning how to manage my time with sports and academics,” Silva said. “It is a really good experience that I am going to have for the rest of my life and I am never going to forget coming to Morgantown, a different place and a different style of life. It has been a good experience that I am going to be able to tell everybody about.”
A BIG EAST Academic All-Star and a member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Silva is most proud of the degree in athletic coaching education that he will be receiving, something that most people in his home country do not have.
“It is a pleasure to be here and to study at an American university and get a degree. Not a lot of people have that opportunity back in Brazil, and I am very fortunate to be here and be studying to be able to get a degree,” Silva said. “It is going to help me a lot in my life and it is going to help me whenever I start working.”
What is the most impressive about Silva has been his apprehension of the English language, a language he barely knew when he first arrived at West Virginia.
“I just started learning and in the beginning I did not think I was ever going to be able to learn it because I thought it was very hard,” Silva said. “I just kept working and kept studying and I worked very hard on my own to learn it. When I came here that is when I learned the most.”
Silva’s fondest memory of West Virginia men’s soccer was his first season when he scored the lone goal in a win against then-ranked No. 7 Connecticut. The goal was the first of his career.
“That is the best moment I have had. It was amazing, I felt very good. We beat them on national television, I played well and the team played well. It was a great effort by everyone in front of 4,000 people at UConn.”
Silva will finish up with classes in the summer and then decide whether he wants to stay in the United States or head back home to Brazil.
Johnson is one of the most prolific goaltenders in WVU history with 35 career shutouts, only two away from the record of 37 set by Nick Noble in 2006.
The Lumberton, N.J., native was the 2008 BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Year and is currently the all-time WVU leader in career goals-against with an average of 0.63. Johnson also is on pace to break the total goalkeeper minutes for a career and currently stands at 6,958 minutes played and has played a total of 73 games. In all-time saves Johnson is fourth with 267.
“I think down the line it will be something that means more to me than it does right now,” Johnson said of his accolades. “Right now I am concentrating on getting the team in the NCAA Tournament and deep into the BIG EAST Tournament. It will hit me once everything is done and I look back on it. It has a lot to do with the defenses I had in front of me and they deserve most of the credit for the awards that I have received.”
As a standout student-athlete who is a BIG EAST Academic All-Star, as well as a member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll, Johnson has the support system at West Virginia to thank.
“Managing my time was a big challenge I had to face, but I was able to do it with the help from the support staff we have here,” Johnson said. “Ehren (Green) and Stephanie (White) have really helped me out a lot and have made sure that I stay on track and have helped keep things going in the right direction.”
An industrial engineer major, Johnson has already had numerous job interviews but is hoping to first pursue a career in the game he loves.
“I am going to give MLS (Major League Soccer) a shot and see if I have the skills to go to the next level and if that does not work out, I have a fallback option with engineering,” Johnson said. “Right now the plan is to see what the MLS has to offer.”
As for his time at West Virginia, Johnson’s most memorable moment was when then-No. 1 ranked UConn came to town his freshman season and Johnson made four huge saves to preserve a 1-0 victory on national television.
“I had a really strong performance that game and we ended up beating them,” Johnson recalls. “That game will be forever in my head as one of the best I had here.”
Going into the last week of the season, Johnson is looking for his team to make a mark in the team’s final regular season games and make a push for postseason play.
“These are super important and must-win games,” Johnson said. “We need to take all these games with the mentality that it is one and done. This is something we need to take game-by-game and hopefully run the table from here on out.”
NCAA Selection Show
Wednesday, May 13
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Tuesday, May 12
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Tuesday, May 12
Kansas State Recap
Tuesday, May 12
