GCU men’s soccer team makes NCAA tourney

Grand Canyon needed to win three 1-0 games to punch its ticket into history.

Then, even with no school on Monday, the school was able to pull together for an impromptu viewing party in the Student Union to celebrate the announcement that the men’s soccer team will be playing at UC-Irvine on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Track and field athletes and swimmers from Grand Canyon have competed in NCAA championships. The women’s golf team last spring won the Western Athletic Conference championship to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

GCU men’s soccer team is among 24 at-large teams in the 48-team national field. Only the top 16 teams are seeded. If GCU wins Thursday, it advances to play at No. 9 Stanford on Saturday.

“This group of players is outstanding,” coach Schellas Hyndman said in front of his team and the GCU students who assembled. “They have the character, the determination and the desire to find success.”

After a 1-0 win in Seattle over San Jose State on Sunday gave the Antelopes the WAC tournament title, they got into Phoenix around 10 p.m. and got together Monday morning to see GCU pop up on a big TV during the bracket show.

“It felt more like a team this year,” said sophomore forward Josh Drack, a former All-Arizona and Player of the Year at Chandler Hamilton High School, who was GCU’s only player to make first-team All-WAC this season. “I think we all ended up fighting for each other at the end of the year and realized we can win this thing.”

Drack dreamed of going to GCU when he was in high school to be part of a school that would be eligible for NCAA tournaments by the time he got there. But he never envisioned it would happen this soon.

“I wanted to make GCU a bigger name,” he said. “It’s a really big deal that we won.”

GCU went 12-8 and 6-4 in the WAC, but it went 5-0 against Top 25 opponents: No. 12 Wisconsin, No. 20 Creighton, No. 25 Seattle, and twice against Air Force, ranked No. 8 and No. 13 at the time of the matches.

“We came here to make the program relevant,” Hyndman said. “We were eligible last year for the NCAA Tournament and we didn’t get the job done. This year we talked about what this means to GCU athletics. To come through with those wins, to get three shutouts and to play as good as we did against good teams, it’s amazing.

“From a coaching point-of-view, I was pretty nervous. But our defense came through. Our goalkeeper came through. He’s one of the better ones I’ve ever seen.”

Freshman keeper George Tasouris, who is from Cyprus, was named the WAC Tournament Most Valuable Player. He set a WAC Tournament record for saves with 22 in three games combined.

“When they told me, ‘You’re going to be a goalkeeper in the United States,’ I never thought this,” Tasouris said. “This is crazy.

“It’s like a dream.”

Tasouris said he felt enormous pressure in the three pressure-packed games in Seattle, but he will be ready for Thursday in California.

“We’re going to give the best of ourselves,” he said. “Confidence has gone up. Our defense got a lot better. We held up as a team.”

Senior midfielder Alex Radilla scored the goal on Sunday that sent GCU to the NCAAs.

He made the all-tournament team, along with Drack and sophomore forward Marco Afonso.

“I have to give the credit to my teammates,” Radilla said. “I got to be who got the space and scored it. It could have been anyone.

“You always think about it, winning the championship. But when it happens, it’s a different feeling. It’s awesome.”