Pitt men’s soccer adds 12 newcomers to roster

The Pitt men’s soccer team is coming off one of its best seasons in recent memory, as the Panthers ended a 54-year NCAA tournament drought in 2019. And the next time the team takes the field, there will be plenty of new faces, as Pitt head coach Jay Vidovich announced the addition of a dozen new players to the team on Friday afternoon.

Of the 12 new players, two join the team as graduate transfers, two join as traditional transfers and eight join as freshmen. They will not be the only new players on the field next season though, as Pitt also added three new players in the spring, bringing the total number of 2020 newcomers to 15.

“We are excited about the newcomers that will be joining us,” Vidovich said in a statement provided by Pitt. “This is a really good mixture of experience and players that will bring leadership and maturity for us. We have a lot of young guys who will have the potential to develop into great players, and we look forward to working with them.”

One intriguing addition is Nicolas Campuzano, a goalkeeper who transfered from Portland after posting five clean sheets with the Pilots in 2019. While he struggled in his final two games last season, he also had a seven-game hot streak in which he recorded three straight shutouts and saw his team go 5-2.

The list of 2020 transfers is rounded out by Anass Amrani, Raphaël Crivello and Jasper Loeffelsend. Amrani, a Morocco native, will join the team as a junior; Crivello, who is from France, will start his Pitt career as a sophomore; and Loeffelsend is a graduate transfer from Germany.

Vinicius Belon and Soshun Shigaki, incoming freshmen originally from Serbia and Japan, are also notable additions, as they played for Montverde Academy, which went 21-4-1 in 2019. Belon was a defender on an Eagles team that only conceded goals in 12 of its 26 games. On the offensive side of the ball, Shigaki helped link up play for an offense that scored five or more goals in 11 of the 26 matchups.

The other six additions to the team include Bertin Jacquesson, Luis Lara and Filip Mirkovic, all of whom are international players, as well as former Atlanta United 2 forward Brandon Clagette and in-state recruits Luke Peperak and Nathan Stricker. They join Lucas Matuszewski, Dominic Reiter and Louis Spicer, all of whom joined Pitt this spring. Reiter and Peperak were WPIAL standouts who scored 55 and 33 goals, respectively, in 2019.