Bantam Soccer Team Wins Record Number of Region Awards

The USC Union men's soccer team brought home a record number of awards this season. Mila Mzamane, a freshman from Johannesburg, South Africa, was recognized as the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 10 Player of the Year and was named an All-Region Player (1st team) and Head Coach Marc Curlee was awarded Coach of the Year. Mzamane is the second consecutive Player of the Year for Bantam Soccer, as sophomore Nico Steinweg was the 2022 winner. An additional four players were named NJCAA Region 10 All-Region players – Ben Roder (1st team), Adrian Williams (2nd team), Bryan Garcia (2nd team), and Jay Brunson (2nd team) joining Maximus Moriarty (3rd team, 2022). Goalie Donovan Cobb received an Honorable Mention.

"This really is a team award," said Mzamane. "I couldn't have done it without my coaches and teammates. It feels special to win for my first season." Curlee says that having only a four-loss season and back-to-back Player of the Year awards has been a huge step forward for the program. "The team was very family-oriented and disciplined this season," he said. He feels that winning Coach of the Year was a "group effort" and credits the honor to his assistant coaches Benjamin Coffey, Zach Curlee, Zayne Sutton, and Jose Pimental. "All of these guys played for me at some point," he said. "It meant a lot that they came back to help."

Curlee says that next season, he hopes to build on the progress the team has made this year. "We just look for growth from year to year. We usually set the goal of winning one more game than the year before, and we exceeded it," he said. "This shows that the program is heading in the right direction."