Brothers are making their soccer mark at UMass
Published on November 7th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - When the calendar turns toward November in the town of Stoneham over the last five years, it was normally time for the DeSantis brothers to, no pun intended, kick their soccer intensity up a notch while still donning the Spartans' Blue and White uniforms.
Older brother Mike and Mark, one year younger, turned in their SHS jerseys over the last three years and are instead now both starring as Division I soccer players at the University of Massachusetts, but success and soccer glory have continued to follow them late into the autumn season.
Just this past Sunday Mike converted on a corner kick after 50 minutes of soccer to key a 1-0 win over Fordham University, and it brought back a lot of memories of just about every victory that the DeSantis brothers factored heavily in on the SHS soccer field.
"It's been great playing again with Mark, and this season I think things have really started to click in for both of us," said Mike, who has a pair of goals from his spot in the middle of the UMass attack this season. "Mark had a lot of good Division I soccer programs to choose from, and the one I know he thought pretty heavily about was Boston College. "But I obviously thought it would be a good idea for him to come out and play and UMass, and it's ended up working out great," added DeSantis.
Mark struggled a bit as a freshman for the Minutemen last season, but he's again dominating the soccer field from the forward position as he did in piling up numbers en route to shattering the records for goals (87) and points (130) during his four-year Spartans' soccer career.
Mark notched a pair of assists and played started 13 games from the right midfield and right wing positions, and didn't always hide the frustration at truly struggling on the soccer field for the first time.
"I think he was very frustrated [last season]," said Koch. "It's hard to explain but imagine you can run uphill no problem and then you put on a lead suit and you can't run up that hill anymore and you get frustrated that you can't do it.
"We feel that Mark has broken it out of it, the curse is off his back and he's capable of scoring a goal at any moment in a game," added Koch. "The simplest way to put is that in his conference he's going up against maybe four Division I backs mixed in between 10 or 12 teams, and some teams don't have any top level defenders. I think he's found now that each team has eight great defensive backs - four that are starting and four that are on the bench - and once he gets past one defender there is another just waiting for him that he has to beat again. He's going against much better defenders that are much quicker and much stronger than he's used to and it's a huge adjustment."
As is the case with most high school hotshots, Mark had to adjust to a higher level of competition and his college soccer coach has seen some impressive results this season. Mark is second on the team with three goals scored and eight points, and leads the team with 30 shots attempted and 18 shots that have been on goal.
"Mark had a really good spring season [as a freshman] until he got hurt, and he did struggle his first season here," said UMass soccer coach Sam Koch. "At the beginning of last season he really started to come on for us and he figured out how to make the necessary adjustments to have success this season.
"He's just absolutely exploded since we started the conference games where he had goals against both Dayton and Xavier and had a game-winning goal against St. Louis," added Koch. "Those were opportunities he might have missed last season but now they're going in. It was one of things last season with Mark where he would start to shake his head and wonder if it was ever going to go in. Once it did you knew he was going to start scoring with a lot more regularity."
Big brother Mike, on the other hand, has been very consistent during his sophomore and junior seasons and given Koch and Co. everything they could possibly want for a stabilizing, calming influence in the middle of the field.
The UMass soccer coach sees Mark as the more outgoing sibling at ease with public speaking and easily voicing his opinions, while the vocal leadership role is one that older brother Mike has had to grow into on the soccer club.
"Mark is much more comfortable talking into a microphone than Mike is. I think Mike just wants to come out, do his job and then just disappear and he's gone about doing an excellent job of that," said Koch. "Mark is used to having more attention, has learned how to deal with it and handles it extremely well while Mike is a little less comfortable with it.
At the end of the day, though, they are both very competitive and they both want to win," added Koch.
Mike felt that a more vocal and strong leadership role was needed on his Minuteman squad, and he naturally stepped up and filled in where was needed - something he's always done since his time playing as a youngster in the Stoneham youth soccer program.
"They've both done very well," said Koch. "Mike has really continued to be that Rock of Gibraltar for us in the midfield by really holding things together. He's really been the stop-gap guy for us on defense; a guy that stops a team cold and then gets things going down the other end from defense to offense.
"Whether it's getting a ball to our forwards, or simply getting the ball out of trouble areas and out into open spaces," added Koch. "Mike really does a great job of helping us control the middle of the field."
With both DeSantis brothers controlling both the middle and the offensive ends of the field over the next two seasons, things should continue roll for the Minuteman during the special month of November.
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