It was a season of firsts for the Central College men’s soccer team last fall. The Dutch went 14-4-2, won their first ever American Rivers Conference championship, qualified for their first ever trip to the NCAA tournament, and had the program’s first ever All-American.

Men’s soccer also won Central’s “Team of the Year” at the Dutchies awards for the first time ever, and coach Garry Laidlaw reflected afterwards on how all of the pieces came together for his club in 2019.

“It starts, I think, with great senior leadership. Those guys were tremendous, not just on the field, but in the classroom as well. Those guys are winners in life, and really set the standard for the younger guys. In addition to that, we had a good mix of players, new players, good players in the middle classes. And you’ve got to have a certain amount of good fortune sometimes, whether that’s a bounce here, a ball off the post there. All those things sort of have to come together, and certainly that happened for us last fall.”

Senior Taylor Petkovich was tabbed as a third-team All-American, one of just 47 players to be recognized nationally. He anchored a Dutch defense that held opponents to just 24 goals in 20 games. He added one goal from the back end and totaled six assists.