When the Maryland men’s soccer team spilled onto the field in Santa Barbara, Calif., in December 2018 to celebrate winning an unlikely national title, among them was freshman Nick Richardson.
Dressed in a black tracksuit, Richardson, a standout at Archbishop Curley, hadn’t been able to contribute to the star-studded Terps roster because of a lingering knee injury sustained before the season. But that didn’t stop him from mobbing his teammates after a dramatic 1-0 victory against Akron that gave head coach Sasho Cirovski his third national title and first since 2008.
Nearly four years later, Richardson is the last remaining member of that historic team that produced more than a half dozen professional players, including Chase Gasper, Matt and Ben Di Rosa, Donovan Pines, Amar Sejdic, Dayne St. Clair and Brett St. Martin. The fifth-year senior is arguably the best right back in college soccer, according to Cirovski, and helped Maryland (9-2-5, 4-0-4) win the Big Ten regular-season title.
Richardson will soon begin the final postseason run of his college career. The Terps’ Big Ten tournament run starts Nov. 4 in College Park and the NCAA Tournament will begin later this month in Cary, N.C. The perfect ending to a storied Maryland career would be to go out like he came in, Richardson said, as a champion.
Growing up in Baltimore, Richardson always had a close connection to the University of Maryland, where both of his older sisters attended. It was his play for his club team, Baltimore Celtic, however, that put him on the radar of Cirovski and Maryland assistant coach Jake Pace. A few weeks after a club tournament in North Carolina, Richardson found himself on a phone call with Pace.
“I was kind of overwhelmed and shocked that they were there,” Richardson said.
Ahead of the 2018 season, Richardson was expected to be a significant contributor on a team stacked with seniors, Cirovski said, but a PCL injury in the offseason forced him to redshirt.
“Now it’s proved to be the right thing to do, but he was on target to be a significant member of that team,” Cirovski said. “And he still was because he’s such a high-character young man. He still found ways to contribute and became an important player in training late in the year but also was just a class act.”
Because he couldn’t contribute on the field, Richardson dedicated himself to being a strong locker room presence and was embraced by team leaders like St. Clair and Sejdic.
“They brought me in and I was a part of the team right away,” he said. “And even though they’d never seen me play, they respected how much effort I was putting in and the work I was doing to get back on the field.”
Throughout the next three seasons, Richardson drew on those experiences to become a two-time captain as a junior and senior and impart the culture of hard work he took in as a freshman. He set an example by staying in College Park in the summers to work out on his own and participate in player-led training sessions.
“As long as you’re doing the right things during the summer, and putting that extra hard work in during the season as well, you’re definitely going to have some success here because everything around you is built for your success,” Richardson said.
That hard work translated to success on the field. An 11-8-2 season in 2019 and a 12-4-2 mark in the fall of 2021 sandwiched a 4-5-2 COVID year in the spring of 2021. What was missing was a deep postseason run. Maryland lost in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament and the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2019. Two opening-game upsets in those tournaments last fall left Richardson hungering for one more chance at a championship.
On Oct. 30, the Terps scored a dramatic late goal to tie Indiana in the regular-season finale to secure the Big Ten regular-season title. Maryland’s success is due in large part to its Richardson-led defensive line, one of the stingiest in the conference. The Terps have allowed 19 goals in 16 games.
Awaiting top-seeded Maryland in the Big Ten tournament is No. 8 seed Northwestern (3-8-5, 1-5-2) at Ludwig Field Nov. 4. In a single-elimination tournament where the stakes are higher, teams with senior leaders like Richardson can shine, Cirovski said.
“I’d love to see Nick raise a trophy this year. I know it feels a little different when you’re the captain and the leader and you’re a senior and you’re the one lifting the trophy,” Cirovski said. “I just would love nothing more than to see the young man with a smile on his face, and some hardware in his hands.”
For Richardson, his college career began on a high by winning a championship but the memory of not being able to contribute on the field has stayed with him for the following four seasons.
“It would be a storybook ending. Coming through college and experiencing a lot of success and struggle, it would be a perfect script,” Richardson said. “I hope we ended on that high, but also if we don’t, I think I still wrote my story pretty well.”
See Also: A Salute To Coaches: Sasho Cirovski