DU Pioneers thwart UMass, return to men’s soccer College Cup after eight-year wait

Winner winner, steak dinner. Tonight, Texas Roadhouse is on Jamie Franks.

With a 3-0 win over the University of Massachusetts, the DU Pioneers men’s soccer team is College Cup-bound for just the second time in program history. But that’s not what the medium-rare delight is meant to celebrate.

The New York strip, defender Jason Belloli’s favorite cut, will be for his opening goal in the eighth minute of the NCAA Tournament quarterfinal on the DU campus. A running joke for the Pioneers is that whenever a center back scores, Franks owes the team a steak dinner.

The 6-foot-3 senior from Illinois freed himself at the back post on a corner, which midfielder Sam Bassett served on a platter, and barrelled into the ball, a UMass defender and its keeper. All three ended up lying down across the goal line.

He hadn’t earned steak yet this season — center back partner Trevor Wright hogged the spoils with two of his own. But for Belloli, there weren’t many better times to score his first goal of the season.

“It’s a great feeling. (Set pieces are) something we’ve worked on a lot in the past few weeks,” Belloli said. “We’ve been really determined to get some goals that way. If we can get a set-piece goal and then keep a clean sheet, we win the game. It feels great to get (a goal), but the shutout was what meant more to me.”

Belloli and the Pioneers have been racking those up, too. After a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in the Summit League final, they’ve yet to give up a goal in three NCAA Tournament games, winning them by a combined score of 7-0.

Belloli was a member of the 2021 recruiting class which Franks says was a turning point during his tenure. The margin of error, he says, is thin when making “four- and five-year decisions” on individuals. He admitted some past mistakes have made his return to the College Cup long, long overdue.

To Franks, though, it’s not about him. It’s about the building blocks he and his staff acquired and the way they’ve bound together to create what has been an impenetrable wall on defense, which can also happen to score a lot of goals.

“I think it’s always about the players. We (the coaches) are sitting on the sideline unemotional, trying to make decisions, but it always comes down to the players,” Franks said. “There’s a unique combination of skill and grit that we have, and I think that’s the difference.”

To all 2,361 in attendance at DU Soccer Stadium — a facility record by almost 500 people, forcing many to stand on the slim concourse above the north goal and some to sit on a still-snowy patch of grass behind the south goal — that combination, coupled with an unwavering team-wide belief and sense of urgency, was on full display.

So was a very simple and specific game plan: find the back post.

The Pios’ second goal came in the 43rd minute when winger Ian Smith found defender Ronan Wynne for a header at almost the same angle as Belloli’s just a couple of yards farther.

Unsatisfied with the two-goal lead, DU swung again early in the second half and came up with the knockout punch — a straightforward grounded cross from defender Dylan Akau to forward Oje Ofunrein at the back post.

The Pioneers have a thin line to toe now that they’re back to the gates of the promised land. Franks noted that eight years ago, in the program’s first trip to Cary, N.C., his team seemed more satisfied with being one of the final four than hungry to be the last team standing.

This time around, the team’s job is far from finished.

“This is exactly where we should be,” Franks said. “We’ve thought that even since last year, we thought we were going to be a team that could maybe win the national championship, and then we had some injuries and it’s just been a journey since then. …

“The feeling’s a little bit different here. We’re here to win this thing, and we believe we’re the best team in the country. We’ve thought that all season, and we’re just really excited to showcase that.”

The Pios will open the College Cup semifinals Friday against unseeded Vermont, which beat national No. 2 seed Pittsburgh on Saturday, 2-0.

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