Recognizing the University of Vermont Men's Soccer Team

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, all of Vermont celebrates the University of Vermont Men's Soccer Team on winning the NCAA Men's Soccer National Championship.

The UVM Men's Soccer Team affectionately known as the ``Cardiac Catamounts,'' pulled off a historic comeback on Monday, December 16 to win 2-1 against Marshall University after a 95th minute golden goal, earning their first title in program history and becoming the first team in the America East Conference to win a national championship.

It was a game for the record books, literally Marcell Papp's perfectly timed goal gave the Catamounts a golden opportunity in overtime, and Maximilian Kissel's winning goal--his 11th of the season--will be remembered for all time.

The entire squad--Niklas Herceg, Lou Liedtka, Nathan Simeon, Mike Bleeker, Cole Richardson, Adrian Schulze Solano, Connor Thompson, Andrew Millar, Niels Hartman, Maximilian Kissel, Nick Lockermann, Yaniv Bazini, Nash Barlow, David Ismail, Ethan Czaporowski, Gianluca Armellino, Ioanis Vassiliou, Marcell Papp, Toby Grant, Karl Daly, Sydney Wathuta, TJ Liquori, Pieter Bultman, Ryan Zellefrow, Zach Barrett, Jeremy Tsang, Max Murray, and Mitchell Ringman--played an important part in this season's success.

To the casual observer, the Catamounts may have been the tournament's underdogs or a Cinderella story. But to the team and the Vermonters rooting for them back home, this championship win was not a fluke or a lucky break. It was inevitable.

In the 2024 season, the Catamounts scored 22 goals in the 76th minute or later, with the championship equalizing goal being no exception. Late game victories were a habit for the Catamounts this tournament, beating San Diego University in overtime during the third-round match and tying the University of Denver in the dying minutes of the semifinal match to push the game into penalty kicks, where a save from Catamounts goalkeeper Niklas Herceg secured the Catamounts a ticket to the finals.

The Cardiac Catamounts is only the third unseeded program to win a championship since the National Collegiate Athletic Association expanded the tournament to 16 seeded teams in 2003.

The Cats have shown heart, persistence, and never lost their cool all season, Vermont Values through and through. With this championship, the Catamounts put UVM athletics on display and made all of us proud to cheer for Vermont.

I congratulate the University of Vermont Men's Soccer Team for their well-deserved championship win and for representing the values of Vermont.

And a special congratulations to the Catamounts' Head Coach Rob Dow and his wife Loren Bowley Dow, who welcomed their second child Russel only weeks ago.

This is a team of champions, not underdogs. They have made Vermont very proud.

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