2001 NCAA Men's Soccer Champions

Jeff Haines keeps a constant reminder of one of Stockton University’s greatest sports accomplishments in a spot where he can see it every night. A piece of the net from the 2001 NCAA Division III men’s soccer championship game hangs in his bedroom.

Haines was the head coach of that team, which defeated University of Redlands (Ca.) 3-2 to clinch the national championship, becoming the first team in school history to win a national crown. Stockton finished the year 25-1-1.

“When we won, I had never seen a collegiate soccer program cut down soccer nets before,” Haines said. “I wanted everybody to get a piece of the net to keep forever.  We got permission from the athletic director. Everybody got a piece of the net. I still have the net hanging on my bed post. It’s been in the same spot since 2001.”

The championship game was played at Messiah College (Pa.) on Nov. 24, 2001, 20 years ago this year. The Ospreys had eliminated Ohio Wesleyan 3-1 on penalty kicks after a scoreless tie in the Final Four. Stockton’s road to the title also included blanking Mary Washington 3-0, Rowan 1-0 and St. Lawrence 1-0.

“It was awesome,” said Haines, now the associate director of athletics & recreation at Stockton. “It was my goal to win a national championship. I was obsessed to win a national championship and fortunately enough it happened. We had a great group of players that bought into what I was selling. They were extremely coachable and they worked hard and trusted each other and trusted the coaching staff.”

“We played Redlands in the first game of the season and beat them 3-1 and then played them the last game of the year in the national championship game. That team only had two losses all year and they were both to us. Our only loss was to Rowan during the regular season but we beat them two more times, once in the conference semifinal game and then in the NCAA tournament.”

Haines says there were 435 Division III men’s soccer programs in the country the year they won. The Ospreys set an NCAA record for victories and the season included a 20-game winning streak and a 22-game unbeaten streak. The team, which established multiple school records, was inducted into the Stockton Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.

Haines, who went 269-99-34 in 17 seasons (1998-2014) took the coaching reins from Tim Lenahan, whom he credits with pushing the program to a higher level.

John Epley, then a junior forward, scored the first goal in the title game off an assist from Greg Ruttler, who is now Stockton’s men’s soccer coach.  Now living in Maryland and working for the U.S. Department of Defense, Epley said playing on that team meant the world. 

“In the moment, being the first team to ever win the national championship for the school was a milestone in itself, but 20 years later, going back and reflecting on it, we’re still the only team that’s won a championship,” said Epley, a Franklinville, N.J., native, who was a 2002 All-American in soccer and entered the school’s athletics hall of fame in 2013. 

“Of course, there’s been some great teams in other sports that have been in NCAA tournaments and have gone to Final Fours like the men’s basketball team, but being the only team to win it, it’s a great accomplishment for the whole team as we worked so hard back in ’01.”

While they stayed pretty healthy all year, in the second half of the championship game star forward Jeff Moore suffered an injury, Haines said. Moore and Ruttler were two of the team’s national All-Americans. Ruttler scored the second goal for Stockton that day and Mike McAlarnen scored the eventual game-winning goal on a header.

“I’m reminded of it every day, walking through the hallway and passing the trophy, the banner in the gym,” Ruttler said. “I’m in year 16 as a coach (at Stockton), seven as head coach. It's an interesting position to be in and one that I'm very fortunate and happy to have with being able to be reminded about it every day.”

Seniors such as Ralph Maione and Nick Agaccio also stepped up that day, Haines said. “Ralphie went in and defended his butt off,” said Haines, who was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017. 

“…We had two seniors (Maione and Agaccio) that really didn’t start maybe five games combined in their career and both were on the field when the final whistle blew… We were ready because we went to the Final Four in 1999 with almost that whole group of players. We won (17) games in 2000 but we had a little bit of a disappointing year. All spring and summer leading up to the 2001 season, everybody took it serious.”

Someone Haines felt never got enough credit was freshman goalkeeper Brett Steinberg (Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J.) who was stellar all year. He had selected Stockton over American University. 

“He was the best goalkeeper in the state his senior year of high school,” Haines said. “He started almost every game for us his freshman year and played almost every minute. He was unbelievable as a freshman. We had an old team in 2001, we were mostly juniors and seniors, and we brought a freshman goalkeeper in which is extremely difficult to do.”

Haines said the team still stays in touch. “…We have a national championship team group text. Everybody texts all the time. My wife (Christine Haines) said to me when she met the team at the Hall of Fame induction ‘winning the national championship really brought you guys close together.’  I’m like ‘no, you’re wrong, the reason we won the national championship is because we were so tight and so connected.’ ”

Ruttler and Chris Meyrick, a junior midfielder on the championship team, concurred. Ruttler said he gets “random texts and phone calls from former teammates that just want to talk about a funny story or bring up something embarrassing that one of us did that year.”

“Once I got done my playing career at Stockton, I got back into coaching and any time we had a big game we talked about the magnitude of it,” said Meyrick, now superintendent of the Beach Haven Borough School District. “One thing that stuck out when I was coaching my high school team is a quote: ‘win today, walk together forever’. That kind of resonates with what the 2001 national championship team was all about.”

“In my four-year playing career, we were very successful all four years. My junior year we were fortunate enough to win the whole thing. I communicate with that team on a consistent basis. There’s not a season that goes by that a group chat is not started and someone is going at someone else just joking around or talking about the good times or different games. I celebrated my 40th (birthday) this past summer so I’m like ‘man, time’s a flying’, but the memories are still very vivid.”

Epley agreed the brotherhood remains strong. “We’re always backing each other up,” Epley said. “The brotherhood, not only the text thread which is very comical at times, we’re always looking out for each other. We say it all the time,’ Ospreys for life’.”