Chicago Fire Premier Feature -- www.chicagofirepremier.com
Friday, May 27, 2011
EVANSTON, Ill. – Winning streaks, clean sheets, playing on a team of college stars; David Meves has been there and done that.
This summer he’s doing it again.
Meves, an Arlington Heights native, is coming off a 2010 college campaign in which he starred in goal for the NCAA College Cup champion Akron Zips. While many of his college teammates have moved on to Major League Soccer – five Zips were selected in the top eight picks of last winter’s draft –Meves still has two years of eligibility remaining.
But the 6-foot-1, 195-pounder is hardly putting his feet up for the summer. Instead, he’s the starting keeper for Chicago Fire Premier, a team of current college standouts competing in the Premier Development League (PDL).
At 6:30 p.m. on Saturday at Evanston’s Lazier Field, Meves is expected to be in net as Fire Premier (2-0-0, 6 points) hosts Louisville-based River City Rovers (0-0-2, 2 points) in a Great Lakes Division match-up. With a victory, Fire Premier would not only stay in first-place, but also lock up qualification for the prestigious Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
With Meves between the sticks, Fire Premier has opened the season with consecutive 2-0 shutouts. Like at Akron, Meves has not faced a barrage of shots. But he’s made timely saves, shown command inside the 18-yard box and inspired confidence among his teammates.
“He’s an agile guy and pretty reactive,” Fire Premier head coach coach Mark Spooner said. “In terms of going forward, he commands his box fairly well. Every coach and player has confidence when they have a (keeper) they can trust. (Just two weeks into the season), he’s building that trust. He’s stepped up and been great for us so far.”
Meves is coming off a sophomore season in which he started all 25 games for Akron (22-1-2), was credited with 11 shutouts and surrendered just 16 goals. He was named third-team All-America by TopDrawerSoccer.com and was a second-team ESPN Academic All-America after earning a 3.84 GPA in corporate financial management.
Meves also wore the No.1 shirt as a freshman when the Zips went 23-1-1 and lost to Virginia on penalty kicks in the College Cup Final.
Still, in his two seasons, Meves has been overshadowed on a college team that featured attackers like Teal Bunbury (Kansas City Wizards), Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers), Anthony Ampaipitakwong (San Jose Earthquakes) and Michael Nanchoff (Vancouver Whitecaps), defensive midfielder Perry Kitchen (D.C. United) and defenders Kofi Sarkodie (Houston Dynamo) and Zarek Valentin (Chivas USA).
But in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article just before the 2010 NCAA Tournament, Akron head coach Caleb Porter said Meves did not receive enough credit for the Zips’ success.
“Just because he doesn’t have a lot of saves to make doesn’t mean he isn’t a tremendous goalkeeper,” Porter told the paper.
Meves proved his value throughout the tournament. In the final in Santa Barbara, Meves’ last-minute, point blank stop of a shot by Louisville’s Buck Tufty helped preserve the Ohio team’s 1-0 victory.
“It can be a challenge (for a goalkeeper) when your team dominates play,” Meves said. “But you have to stay focused and know that maybe you’re not going to get a lot, but that one save could be the difference between winning and losing.”
Meves remains close to his former teammates, especially Sarkodie, and aspires to join them in the professional ranks one day. He’s hoping scouts will be drawn to his agility and overlook his height, a few inches shorter than ideal for a top-class keeper.
The 2011 college season will be a pivotal one for the netminder, who will have a chance to prove his success was not simply the result of being on Akron’s Dream Team.
Though Porter has brought in a top recruiting class, all signs point to the Zips’ keeper being called into action more often in 2012. Meves relishes the challenge.
“If you are going to move to the next level, you have to show that you can survive in any type of situation,” said Meves, who spent a year training with U17 Residency Program in Bradenton, Fla., before finishing up his high school career at the tiny Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights. “I’ll still go into every game with the same mentality as before. There will probably be more chances, more things to do (next year), and I look forward to showing coaches I can do that.”
Meves also expects to be one of the leaders of the Akron team in the fall. As a Fire Premier veteran, in his second season with the club, he has been able to hone those leadership skills this summer.
That’s just one of many benefits to playing on the team. Fire Premier, which features college standouts like Harrison Petts (Indiana) and Tyler Polak (Creighton), trains daily in a professional environment at Toyota Park in Bridgeview.
Also, Meves recently was asked to participate in training with the MLS club when starting keeper Sean Johnson was injured. Meves said he got some constructive criticism from Fire veteran keepers and the team’s coaching staff.
Fire coaches and administrators have reason to keep an eye on Meves, who has Homegrown Player status. Recent rule developments in MLS allow clubs to register certain local players as “homegrown” before they enter college. Later, teams have an opportunity to sign their homegrown talent without the players having to go through the SuperDraft.
Of course, those are decisions that will be made down the road. In the meantime, Meves won’t have trouble finding confidants who can tell him about life at the next level.
“I keep in touch with most of my former teammates (now in MLS). Kofi and I talk a lot,” Meves said. “I know those guys enjoy playing soccer for a career. But it’s a lot of hard work. You have to keep working hard and can’t take any days off.”