Zach Barrett has chance to cap career at Vermont with a national title

Zach Barrett lifted a McGuire Cup with Lehigh Valley United in 2019 and five years later has a chance to lift the College Cup trophy as a swan song to his college career at Vermont.

The Phoenixville native will be one of the most experienced players stepping on to the field tonight at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C. when the Catamounts take on the University of Denver. The fifth year senior’s decision to return to Vermont for his grad year – in a day and age when the transfer portal offers a vast array of options – has been one of the keys to Vermont breaking through and earning the program’s first ever trip to the College Cup.

“We’ve kind of just been knocking on the door for the last two years,” said Barrett. “Just to be able to get to this point has been a testament to to all the work that everybody’s put in for for the last two or three years.”

Barrett is one of 8 grad students on the Catamounts roster this season, which also includes four seniors. Four of the grad studens transferred in from other schools for their grad year and two were newcomers from overseas. For Barrett returning for one more season was a case of unfinished business.

“Losing in the Sweet 16 was definitely not how I wanted to finish my college career, so I knew pretty quickly that I was going to come back,” Barrett said. “And the goal was to win a national championship.”

Should the Catamounts get past Denver in Friday’s semifinal, Barrett will have a chance to hit 90 appearances for his career in Burlington. He’s one appearance behind grad student Max Murray, who has 89 appearances. The previous school record was 82.

Over five seasons in green and yellow, Barrett has logged 7,743 minutes. In between his seasons in Burlington, he’s played in the NPSL with Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals (and former club coach Mike Gorni) along with Vermont Green and FC Motown in USL League Two.

Whether playing for Vermont or one of the amateur team defenses he’s help shore up, Barrett’s consistency and reliability in the back has been a key feature. In addition to playing mostly drama-free defense, Barrett has also contributed to the offense with a goal and five assists this season and 7 goals and 6 assists over his college career.

“If I’m not getting talked about then I’m doing my job,” Barrett said. “That’s the kind of mentality that I have, and that we have as a defense.”

2024 #AEMSOC Defender of the Year Zach Barrett talks about his time with @UVMmsoccer and what it means to win this award! pic.twitter.com/lFaM1fJzum

— America East (@AmericaEast) November 12, 2024

Collectively, the Catamounts defense has limited opponents to 17 goals in 22 games. Wyncote, Pa. native Lou Liedka – a Davidson transfer – has contributed to the stinginess in the back with eight appearances in the net and three clean sheets. German keeper Niklas Herceg has been the keeper down the stretch and made 20 saves in Vermont’s four tournament wins.

As the only unseeded team left (16 teams are seeded and given first round byes) Vermont will play the underdog role tonight, which is perfectly fine with Barrett, who started his youth career playing at West-Mont United and spent time in the Union Juniors program at YSC before joining Lehigh Valley United.

“Our preparation and our mentality going into games, it’s not about who we’re playing,” he said. “We could be playing the best team in the country, or we could be playing the worst team by country and it’s more about what we do in the game that’s going to impact the results. So we just focus mostly on on ourselves, how we can control the game, rather than things that we can’t control, like how the other team is playing, or who they’re playing, how the ball bounces, you know, like staying in control of our actions, and that will will definitely help us prevail.”

Barrett went undrafted in the MLS SuperDraft last year but should be a consideration for teams drafting this year and an option at the next level regardless so there’s still more soccer to play for the Phoenixville native but more than individual accolades on his mind. Five years ago he had the privilege of helping lead the Mike Gorni-coached LVU 2000 team to the US Youth Soccer U-19 national championship, which comes with the coveted McGuire Cup, the oldest trophy in youth sports. LVU won the match 1-0 in overtime over Baltimore Celtic in Overland Park, Kansas.

“That’s definitely something that’s been in the back of my mind,” Barrett said of the 2019 youth championship. “Why can’t I win a national championship in college too?”