Sports
Powers of the Pitch
Two young stars have helped put Harvard soccer atop the Ivies.
Deep into the second half of the NCAA soccer playoff game against SUNY Binghamton last fall, with the score tied 1-1, Harvard forward André Akpan ’10 took a pass from fellow freshman Chey Im at the top of the Binghamton penalty area. Loosely guarded for once, Akpan turned and sprinted onto goal, but as a defender closed down to his left, and the goalie covered the severe angle, the scoring chance appeared to be lost. But Akpan wheeled quickly, shot low and hard, and the ball found its way beneath the defender, past the goalie’s hand and foot, to carom off the far post and into the net: 2-1, Harvard. Six feet tall, with an ebullient head of hair, Akpan trotted up the sideline in a long victory run, arms spread wide, grinning broadly at the ecstatic Harvard fans and a suddenly silent contingent from upstate New York.
Several minutes later, a Binghamton forward appeared poised to level the score, with only the goalie to beat from 12 yards out. But Kwaku Nyamekye ’10 came up swiftly from behind to knock the ball out of bounds and the Binghamton forward to earth, ensuring a Harvard victory. It was the Crimson’s first NCAA playoff win since 2001, sending the team to southern California—where they lost, 3-0, to UCLA, the eventual runner-ups for the national title.
During the 2006 season, in the centennial year for men’s soccer at Harvard, the Crimson captured its first Ivy League Championship in a decade, and the first one for coach John Kerr, now in his ninth year at the helm. Harvard was the top-ranked offense in the country during the regular season, averaging 2.58 goals per game, and had the three highest scorers in the Ivy League, as league Player of the Year Charles Altchek ’07, Akpan, and speedy playmaker Mike Fucito ’09 combined for 32 goals. Freshmen Nyamekye and Akpan were standouts, two of only four players to start all 19 games. “I think the new guys [the eight freshmen] integrated really well,” says Nyamekye, “And that showed on the field and really produced good results.”
This year, despite having lost six seniors, including Altchek, to graduation, the team nonetheless looks well-equipped to defend. Akpan and Nyamekye will rejoin Fucito, mid fielder John Stamatis ’09, and senior co-captains Matt Hoff, a forward, and goalkeeper Adam Hahn.
Nyamekye grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, where his parents, Kwado Nyamekye and Gertrude Nimako-Boateng, had moved from Ghana to work for the United Nations, his father in the human-rights division and his mother for the international service. The youngest of eight children, he played for the International School of Switzerland and a club team, C.S. Chênois. Nyamekye sent his highlight CD—a staple for aspiring collegiate athletes—to Kerr who, in turn, dispatched a scout to watch him play in a tournament in England. The report was favorable.
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