As the final minutes ticked off the clock against then-No. 8 North Carolina last November, it looked like Boston College men’s soccer would spend another season winless in conference play—a disappointing reality considering how much better the 2024 Eagles had been than the previous season’s team.
BC was not only allowing fewer goals—the Eagles were also scoring significantly more and were on pace to finish the season .500 or better for the first time since 2019, the last time they made the NCAA Tournament.
In its last game of the regular season, BC had just five minutes left to knock off a ranked UNC team and grab its first ACC win since October 2022.
In a last-ditch effort, Marci Killeen fired the ball toward the net from 30 yards out. The shot, which was BC’s first and only on-target shot of the game, hit the crossbar and bounced straight down into the net, giving the Eagles a 1–0 lead.
BC held UNC scoreless through the final minutes and walked away with a win, capping off a final regular-season stretch during which the Eagles won three of their last four games. That stretch of strong performances ended in a 1–0 loss to Southern Methodist in the first round of the ACC Tournament.
Despite major statistical improvements, its first ACC win since 2022, and a better-than-.500 record, BC still finds itself dead last in the ACC preseason coaches poll headed into the 2025 season.
The Roster
Of the 32 players on BC’s roster, 19 are returning players, including the team’s leading scorer, Ask Ekeland. Ekeland led the Eagles with eight goals last season to go along with two assists. The senior from Norway was named Second Team All-ACC last year and was featured on the 2025 ACC Men’s Soccer Preseason Watchlist.
Another key returner for the Eagles is defenseman CJ Williams. The 6-foot-2 senior was drafted with the 65th-overall pick by the New England Revolution in this year’s draft after making 15 starts for BC last season. A vocal part of the team’s backline and a strong leader, Williams should see a lot of field time this season.
Max Andrews and Christian Bejar are two other key returning pieces on the backline. Andrews and Bejar started 16 and 17 games, respectively, with Bejar leading the whole team in minutes played.
Moritz Gundelach rounds out the returning members of BC’s defense, which allowed the fourth-fewest goals in the ACC last year.
A large part of the defense’s strength, however, was senior goalkeeper Brennan Klein, who led the ACC with a .746 save percentage. With Klein gone, head coach Bob Thompson will have to find a replacement among the team’s five goalies for 2025.
Another notable departure was midfielder Marco Dos Santos, who transferred to Virginia after scoring four goals for the Eagles last season and leading the team with four assists. Xavier O’Neil, who scored one goal and racked up two assists last season, transferred to Saint Louis University during the offseason.
For a team that finished last in the ACC in goals scored—three behind second-to-last Syracuse and 34 behind first-place Duke—losing multiple goal scorers does not bode well. When you add on the fact that the team’s second-leading assist provider, Leo Guarino, graduated this past spring, the final third seems like a recipe for disaster.
New Additions
Thirteen fresh faces will look to fill in the gaps on BC’s roster.
Perhaps the most exciting player is transfer Ziad Abdul-Malak. The redshirt senior spent the past four years at Le Moyne, where he was named to the All-NEC First Team after tallying five goals and an assist in 2024. He was named a 2025 United Soccer Coaches Player to Watch for the upcoming season.
BC’s incoming class includes seven other transfers.
Russell Brown, from DII school Christian Brothers University, scored 11 goals in 17 games last season.
Nikolai Rojel, who played in 13 games for UCLA last season, is another forward joining the team from the portal. He recorded three goals, placing him second on the Bruins’ stat sheet.
Johannes Hanken Tjostheim is the last forward to join from the portal. He scored 22 goals for Mercy and was named a United Soccer Coaches Third Team All-American.
Two midfielders will join the team from the portal: Alexi Karalis and Harald Race. Karalis is headed to the Heights after playing at Providence for the last two seasons, while Race spent his freshman season at Kentucky, where he made 17 appearances.
After losing Klein to graduation, Thompson brought in three goalkeepers—one freshman, one senior, and one graduate student. Patrick Donovan, the senior, is joining the Eagles from Clemson, where he allowed eight goals in eight games last season. Grad student Marius Helias will join BC after playing professionally at ES Molsheim in France last year. The lone freshman keeper is Andrej Borak, a Serbian player from FK Vojvodina, which competes in the top tier of Serbian football.
The four other freshmen on the roster are Mitchell Shevchenko-Rogers, Fynne Henze, Henry Wassarman, and Watts Richmond. Shevchenko-Rogers is the group’s only forward, while the other three will slot into the defense.
Notable Matchups
BC will open its season against Binghamton at home on Aug. 21 at 5:30 p.m.
The Eagles will play four of their first five games at home, with their lone road matchup in that stretch coming against Providence on Aug. 29. BC lost just two of its 10 home games last year, so an early-season home stretch could be crucial for a strong start from the Eagles.
The Eagles will take on rival Boston University on Sept. 23 at home.
The Eagles will also have an ACC Tournament rematch against SMU on Oct. 18 when they take on the Mustangs in Dallas.
BC will follow that game up with a home matchup against Notre Dame, whom the Eagles tied 1–1 on the road last season. With this matchup being played at home and marking the Eagles’ final conference game of the season, it could be the perfect game to set up an ACC Tournament run.
