KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Dallas Christian College men's soccer team competed at the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCAA) Division I Men's Soccer National Championship the past two days as the ninth seed. It was a tough couple matches for the young DCC roster, as the No. 1 Seed Bethel University and the No. 6 Seed Bethesda University led to DCC dropping both contests in the school's first ever D1 Championship Appearance. 

After being limited to three shots in Monday's match, the Crusaders took that amount on goal and converted on two of them in the second half on Tuesday, as Diego Rodas and Fernando Vaquera tallied goals for DCC. In the 69^th minuted it was Felipe Ferrer that assisted Rodas for his team-leading 17^th goal of the campaign.

Rodas was the hero last week for the Crusaders, as his hat trick lifted them to a Non Dual Affiliated Game Regional Championship. Rodas was selected Student-Athlete of the Week for his effort, and the freshman out of Savannah, Texas, will finish his first season with nine multi-scoring games and the most goals by a first-year student-athlete.

Vaquera played in likely his final match with the Crusaders and was able to notch his first goal of the season, as he is typically on the defensive side of the ball. Alexy Tobias made 13 saves on Monday in the full 90 minutes. Desire Mukandama was the goalie on Tuesday. 

"The results weren't what we wanted," Head Coach Dan Mariscal stated. "It's never easy finishing the season with a loss after getting this far. It's heartbreaking because you grow to love these guys and want nothing more than to see them succeed, especially after overcoming all the challenges this year has thrown at us."

"I am optimistic that the message after our last match made an impact," Mariscal continued. "Many measure themselves by wins/losses, stats, what they've obtained or who they've become but whether referring to playing, coaching or quite frankly just in general, I've learned as the years pass, that most times it is about what you can overcome."

Mariscal still has a lot to be proud of a team that was brought together from mostly scratch and went onto a 7-3 regular season record and led the team to its first-ever NCCAA Division I National Tournament. His squad only had 14 compete on the roster these last two days.

He goes on to say, "We are blessed to have taken part in a great experience, especially for a young team. All of us learned some hard lessons and it gave us an opportunity to gauge where we need to be competitively if we want to continue to succeed as a D1 program."

"We have to put everything in perspective. There are a lot of programs throughout the country that didn't make it into the National Championships. For us to get here in our first year as a D1 program during a pandemic, injuries, recruiting challenges, and through a rebuild, is something our guys should hold their head up high about and be proud of."