All-Delco Boys Soccer: Freese sticks with EA while excelling for Union Academy

NEWTOWN SQUARE >> For three years, Matt Freese had devised the plan for his senior season at Episcopal Academy, the capstone of a stellar career.

But that changed in early August when the goalie got a phone call from one of his other coaches. Tommy Wilson, director of the Philadelphia Union’s Academy, for which Freese is a goalie on the U-18 team, had news. C.J. Dos Santos, the supposed starter, would be leaving for Portuguese club Benfica, leaving Freese as the Academy’s top goalkeeper.

Freese faced a choice: Devote his time to the Union, an opportunity that had brought him around the country training regularly with professionals, or remain loyal to EA.

“It was obviously a really, really hard decision,” Freese said last week. “In the end, I decided to stick with what we already planned. A lot of me wanted to play for the Academy and have the spot and get a lot of playing time and make good ties with them, but at the same time, I didn’t want to ditch out two weeks before preseason started with EA.

“Part of me wanted to finish my senior year; it was going to be our best year. It’s what we worked for for a long time, so I didn’t want to leave without accomplishing that.”

Freese, a two-time All-Delco since his breakout sophomore season, struck a balance, still training regularly with the Union Academy (as well as USL affiliate Bethlehem Steel and, for the first time in October, the Union first team) while fulfilling his obligations with the Churchmen. The result was a stellar season on the field and groundwork for an even brighter future for the 6-foot-3 Harvard commit.

It’s why Freese is the 2016 Daily Times Boys Soccer Player of the Year.

Joining Freese on the first team are teammates Quinn Dudek and Ramon Gallegos; the Radnor triumvirate of Cal Congleton, Phil Regan and Jack Miller; Penn Wood’s Andrew Nmah and Frankie Knuckles; Garnet Valley’s Matt Moore; Haverford’s Sean Cannon; Interboro’s Diego Lopez; and Penncrest’s Sam Brown.

Freese and two-time pick Lopez are the only repeat honorees. Lopez, still just a junior, and classmate Nmah represent the underclassmen. The All-Delco team is selected in consultation with area coaches.

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Freese’s devotion to EA rehashed another complication. The Churchmen have an outstanding backup in A.J. Marcucci, who’ll play next season at Division III Connecticut College. For three seasons, he and Freese vied for time, and while Freese’s talent is undeniable, Marcucci would’ve found himself an unquestioned No. 1 at many programs.
The friendship between Freese and Marcucci, who played together for club FC Europa, has sustained a potentially fraught arrangement.

READ: The All-Delco First Team capsules

“AJ’s such a good goalie,” Freese said. “It doesn’t make sense at all for him to not be getting playing time and to be sitting on the bench. It’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense. We’re very similar level goalkeepers, and I think Coach (David) Knox is really important in helping us maintain our relationship.”

Freese also helped in the matter, Knox said. The Churchmen under Knox, for instance, travel to England for a preseason tune-up trip every three years. This year, Freese elected to stay behind, in part to entrench himself with the Academy, but also in deference to Marcucci and to give a younger teammate the experience Freese got as a freshman.

Freese assumed he and Marcucci would split time, affording him flexibility for Academy training. Dos Santos’s transfer scuttled Freese’s hope that he could play in the field regularly by deploying his hulking frame at center back, but the downside of an injury grew too high with Dos Santos’ departure.

Instead, Knox granted his two seniors keepers latitude in determining playing time, often rotating them by half.

Freese played the full 90 four times, posting clean sheets in wins over (eventual Inter-Ac champ) Penn Charter and Westtown in the first round of the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association Tournament. Freese played in 16 games, contributing to eight of 11 shutouts for a team that conceded just 17 goals in 20 games.

READ: Full list of the All-Delco teams

Along the way, he fulfilled his Academy obligations, ramped up training with Steel as its season wound down with just one rostered goalie and trained with the Union for the first time during the October international break. The highlights of that session included a save on Ilsinho and meeting a player he grew up watching in MLS.

“It’s the coolest thing in the world,” Freese said. “I get there, everyone’s introducing themselves to me. Chris Pontius, who I didn’t know what he looked like — I know he scores a lot — comes up to me and says, ‘I’m Chris,’ and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s up I’m Matt.’ And I looked up a picture of Chris Pontius and it’s him, and I was like, wow.”

Freese also remains committed to Harvard, despite the team’s program being suspended for the rest of the 2016 season in early November due to lewd and sexist behavior toward female soccer players over a number of years.

When EA’s season finale rolled around, Marcucci and Freese decided how to approach EA-Haverford School Day. With an injury to Brandon Sheppard thinning the Churchmen’s attacking corps, Freese, who logged a few minutes in the field in a Nov. 1 win over Germantown Academy, worked in training to fill the role.

The result was Freese, in his first field appearance since the summer before ninth grade, scoring against the Fords, shedding a marker and powering home a through ball from Harrison Malone for the game’s first goal. Freese was denied in the second half by Fords’ goalie Will Baltrus on a similar chance, robbing him of the dream finish in what went down as a 2-1 Fords win.

Despite the setback (a second in four days to the Fords, with the PAISAA ouster), Freese harbors warm memories from his final high school contest.

“The game was unbelievable. It was really awesome,” he said. “I think in sixth and seventh grade, when I was thinking of my future EA-Haverford days – that was before I was a goalie – I would think of scoring on that field rather than scoring a goal on that field. Sometimes, it was kind of mixed, like what if I played half and half. So scoring the goal was awesome.”