The National Junior College Athletic Association in mid November selected five Riverhawks men’s soccer players to the All-Region 20 Division III First Team and one to the Honorable Mention squad. 

The All-Region 20 teams are squads that consist of top players from community colleges in Maryland and Pennsylvania. 

The players selected for the first team were midfielders Leyton Calzado and Samuel Adams. Defenders Raphael Arias and Matt Sutter landed spots on the squad and goalkeeper Edgar Garcia also earned a place on the first team. Daevon Lionel earned a spot on the Honorable Mention team.

Calzado, a first-year transfer studies student, said this was the “first time I’ve ever received something like that before. So I was pretty hyped for that. I was pretty excited [and] honored and I’m proud of everyone else who got it too, because five other people got the award. So it’s really cool that everyone else is getting recognized, too.”

Adams, who earned a spot on the All-Region 20 Honorable Mention team in 2021, agreed.

“I know we had a pretty good region this year,” Adams, a second-year transfer studies student, said. “So just to be selected for that, I feel proud of the work that I’ve done.”

The Riverhawks went 9-4 during the regular season—the team’s fifth straight year with a winning record. The squad then went 2-0 in the regional tournament and 0-2 in nationals.

Calzado led the team in the regular season with six goals. Garcia went 9-4 with a 1.71 goal average during the regular campaign. Adams tallied one goal and one assist. Sutter scored one goal and tallied three assists. Arias scored two goals and had three assists in the regular season and Lionel tallied one goal.

Adams said the five other players landed spots because they were “solid” in their positions.

“Matt Sutter, our right back … was just a solid player,” Adams, a second-year transfer studies student, said. “Edgar, our goalie, also just came in with a lot of clutch saves for us, helped us win games. And then Leyton really started to take form later in the season, providing a lot of goals for us. Ralph was solid back in defense, a great player. And Daevon … was another one in the midfield with me that just helped to do a lot of the dirty work.”

Calzado, Sutter and Lionel plan to come back next season. Men’s head soccer coach Nick Cosentino said the future is bright. 

“If you look at our roster, as long as we get our guys to stay in school, which is the most important thing, of course, we should be really solid next year,” Cosentino noted.

Goalkeeper Edgar Garcia said he found out he and his teammates made the team through social media. 

AACC Athletics “posted all six of us [and] that’s how I found out,” Garcia, a third-year forensics student, said.

Reporters Aidan Gunn and Micah Smith contributed to this story