The Clemson Tigers are the 2021 men’s soccer national champions after beating No. 2-seeded Washington, 2-0 on Sunday.
“I feel like we have the best fans in the country,” Graham Neff, Clemson’s interim athletic director, said. “I feel like we have the best facility in the country behind us. I feel like we have the best head coach in the country, Mike Noonan. And now we officially have the best team in the country.”
Clemson previously had won men’s NCAA soccer titles in 1984 and 1987.
Junior forward Isaiah Reid scored just 27 seconds into the College Cup final that would prove to be all the scoring the Tigers would need.
Reid, a Rock Hill native, scored both goals in the victory and was designated as the College Cup Offensive Most Outstanding Player, according to the school.
“Reid’s early stunner came when an Oskar Ågren clearance forced the Washington goalkeeper, Sam Fowler, to make a decision,” the school said in a news release. “Fowler came out to play a high bounce outside the box and missed in his effort to clear the ball, leaving Reid in on an empty goal. Reid took one touch and buried it in the open net for his eighth goal of the season.”
The school reported several thousand Tigers fans made the four-hour trip to WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina, to watch the victory. Clemson defeated the No. 1, No. 2, No. 4 and No. 9 overall seeds in its tournament run.
Clemson sports now has seven national championships in its history as soccer joins football (1981, 2016, 2018) and men’s golf (2003) as Tiger teams with titles.
According to a news release, Clemson is the only school in the nation with three or more national championships in both men’s soccer and football.
