Rutgers men’s soccer spent most of last fall proving it belonged with the Big Ten’s best, climbing as high as No. 13 in the national rankings before an 0-2-1 stretch down the stretch buried the Scarlet Knights’ postseason hopes. A season-ending 5-0 loss at Indiana left Rutgers at 8-6-3 overall and 3-5-2 in conference play, one spot outside the four-team Big Ten Tournament field. It was still an encouraging step for a program that leaned heavily on newcomers to get there as 21 of Rutgers’ 28 goals
in 2025 came from first-year Scarlet Knights. Head coach Jim McElderry doubled down on that formula this offseason, bringing in 11 newcomers who will be counted on to push Rutgers back into the postseason picture.
The Freshmen Class
Hector Criado
Hector Criado joins Rutgers with more senior playing experience than almost anyone else in this class. The Madrid-born center back spent two full seasons with Alcorcón B, the reserve side of AD Alcorcón, a club that has bounced between Spain’s second and third tiers. He made 54 appearances in the fourth-tier Tercera División RFEF between 2023 and 2025. This past season he moved to Racing Ciudad de Madrid in the fifth tier of Spanish football, starting all 28 matches he played and logging more than 2,400 minutes. It’s an unusual, but very well-traveled path for a 22-year-old incoming freshman, and one that should make him an early candidate for real minutes on a Rutgers back line in transition.
Noah Hannawald
Noah Hannawald spent this past season starting up front for Arminia Ludwigshafen in Germany’s fifth-tier Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar, scoring eight goals in 19 appearances as the club fought to avoid relegation. A translated excerpt from local paper Die Rheinpfalz had Hannawald noting:
“Sure, I should score three or four today … I had bad luck when the post was in the way”
It’s the kind of frank self-assessment that suggests a forward who already holds himself to a professional standard heading into his American college debut.
Julian Chapman
Julian Chapman’s commitment was notable enough to land in TopDrawerSoccer‘s national recruiting roundup last fall, which tracked him as a goalkeeper pulled from the New England Revolution academy pipeline. He actually trained across two MLS academy systems, being the academies of the Revolution and NY Red Bulls, while playing his club ball at YSC Academy in suburban Philadelphia. This dual pedigree is what positions him to push for minutes in a crowded goalkeeper room opposite graduate transfer Rafa Ponce de Leon.
Brian Nascimento
Brian Nascimento wore No. 14 for Cedar Stars Bergen’s U19 MLS Next team, where he described himself as a left-footed center back and left back known for reading the game and communicating well with teammates. He also carries a 3.8 GPA into Piscataway, giving Rutgers another two-way piece, on the field and in the classroom, to build its back line around going forward.
The Transfers
Pius Ssebulime
Pius Ssebulime’s route to Rutgers runs through three continents. Born in Kasana in Uganda’s Masaka District, he came through the KCCA FC youth system, won the 2022 Cambiasso Youth Tournament in Tanzania, and earned Uganda U-17 and U-20 call-ups before spending half a season with C.D. Feirense in Portugal’s second tier. Back home, he captained Buddu Sazza to the 2024 Buganda Masaza Cup title before enrolling at Gardner-Webb, where he started all 18 games as a true freshman and earned Big South All-Freshman honors. Ugandan outlet Kawowo Sports has tracked his adjustment to American college soccer closely, and he noted that
“My season at Gardner-Webb was a big transition for me. Moving away from home wasn’t easy at first, especially adjusting to a new environment, culture, and style of play. But over time, I adapted by staying focused, working hard, and learning from my coaches and teammates. That experience made me more independent and mentally stronger, and it helped me grow both on and off the field.”
Jan Ziewiec
Jan Ziewiec continues a trend seen with most recruits so far. He grew up in Kraków as a Wawel Kraków academy product. In 2021, he made his first-team debut for Cracovia, one of Poland’s oldest and most storied clubs, in a Polish Cup match against Warta Poznań, under a manager named Michał Probierz. Probierz would go on to coach the Polish national team. Ziewiec followed that with a Poland U-18 cap in March 2022, then spent stretches with Unia Tarnów and GKS Jastrzębie in Poland’s lower professional pyramid before landing at Hofstra, where he started all 19 games last fall and scored the goal that eliminated No. 1 seed Vermont from the NCAA Tournament.
Zach Mastrodimos
Zach Mastrodimos arrives from a UCLA program that landed the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class in his freshman cycle and went on to win the program’s first-ever Big Ten Tournament title, though his own role there was limited to eight matches and 184 minutes. The Hoboken native’s pedigree runs deeper than that snapshot suggests, as he came up through Philadelphia Union’s U-18 MLS Next Academy and has already logged minutes with Philadelphia Union II in MLS’s third-tier pro pathway. This kind of production is what had him ranked No. 48 nationally by Top Drawer Soccer as a recruit and helped him lead Philadelphia’s U-17 side to the 2024 MLS GA Cup championship.
Abubaker Mayanja
Abubaker Mayanja was still a teenager when he scored in a CAF Confederations Cup match for KCCA FC in 2023. This brings continental club competition experience most incoming college sophomores simply don’t have. He signed his first minor’s contract with KCCA at the start of that season, and left the club upon turning 18 in December 2024 with a heartfelt farewell message to the fans and staff. He also led Uganda’s U-18 team to the 2024 CECAFA Tournament title as its top scorer. Despite the domestic success, his time at UNC was brief, with six matches and 102 minutes, but a forward with that kind of continental and international pedigree gives Rutgers real upside up top.
Charlie Kitch
Charlie Kitch’s transfer carries a family angle that goes beyond his own résumé as his twin brother, Andrew, is already on Rutgers’ roster. This means the two will play alongside each other again after Charlie’s stops at St. John’s and Elon. The reunion comes on the heels of a big season as Kitch helped Elon capture the program’s first-ever CAA Championship in November, playing every minute of a 3-0 win over Stony Brook in the title match and earning a spot on the CAA All-Tournament Team. He and Andrew won a pair of U.S. Youth Soccer National League titles together with Real Jersey FC as kids, and Charlie enters this season on the watch list for the Hermann Trophy alongside returning Rutgers forward Nick Collins.
Rafa Ponce de Leon
Rafa Ponce de Leon was born in Mexico City and raised in Pennington. Northwestern’s own beat coverage described his departure this offseason as a transfer to “his hometown school.” It’s a fitting way to frame it, as after two quiet seasons at Villanova that he later admitted never felt like the right fit. He broke out at Northwestern, finishing his Wildcats career fifth all-time in clean sheets and posting a 1.01 goals-against average in 2025. He credited his parents’ sacrifices for his development in an interview last summer as he said that
“I’m extremely fortunate with the parents that I have. I think the only reason they were able to motivate me is because they saw how hungry I was for it.”
William Pierce
William Pierce has found the net in every one of his three seasons at Fairfield, building from a freshman year in which he led the Stags outright in scoring to a 2024 All-MAAC First Team campaign headlined by a hat trick against Columbia. His 2025 season was more of a facilitator’s year with three goals and three assists, with two of those helpers coming in a single match against Quinnipiac and his lone goal of the postseason arriving in the MAAC playoffs against Niagara. The Christchurch, New Zealand native’s four-year track record of consistent production is exactly what Rutgers is banking on in the midfield heading into his graduate season.
Between a very large leaning on international experience and proven college talent, Rutgers has assembled a group built to close the gap that kept the Scarlet Knights out of the Big Ten Tournament by the narrowest of margins last fall. The season opens on the road against American on August 20, with Rutgers’ home opener set for August 28 against Sacred Heart at Yurcak Field.
