Northeast College Players Highlight First Two Rounds of 2017 MLS SuperDraft

It wasn’t just the New England Revolution who were scouting the greater Northeast college landscape for college talent. Just about everyone else in MLS was doing exactly that as

The Revolution selected forward Brian Wright, a Canadian born player from the University of Vermont with the 20th overall pick yesterday. But plenty of teams ahead of them also drafted from the northeast corridor of colleges and universities.

Syracuse defender Miles Robinson, an Arlington, Massachusetts native, went second overall to Atlanta United after several teams, including the Revs, failed to move up in the draft to acquire the draft’s top defender. Atlanta then went back to the northeast to grab Providence mifielder Julian Gressel with the 8th overall pick.

Two UConn players also went in the first round with defender Jakob Nerwinski rocketing up the draft board after a stellar combine to the Vancouver Whitecaps with the seventh pick. Fellow Husky Kwame Awuah, a midfield/defender prospect, went sixteenth after New York City FC started throwing allocation money everywhere to get more draft picks.

The Houston Dynamo selected Englishman Joe Holland from Hofstra, a midfielder who notched 19 goals in 79 games for the Pride. Midfielder Zieko Lewis of Boston College fell to the New York Red Bulls at #17, much to the delight of our friends at Once A Metro who already love Lewis and his swagger.

There were also a solid group of players selected from the area schools in the second round as well. The Colorado Rapids selected another Syracuse Orange defender in Liam Callahan at 24th overall. A pair of Delaware Blue Hens in Guillermo Delgado and Thomas de Villardi went 27th overall to the Chicago Fire and 42nd overall to Minnesota United respectively. This also led to one of my favorite the quips of the draft from Chicago Fire beat writer Guillermo Rivera:

St. Francis (PA) defender Francis de Vries went to Vancouver at #29, Monmouth goalkeeper Eric Klenofsky was selected by DC United at #34 and forward Ethan Kutler of the Colgate Raiders was picked by the Red Bulls at #39.