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The low point came last year, when Jack Sandmeyer, the former CIF player of the year from Saint Augustine High School, tried out for the University of San Diego club soccer team.
Not the intercollegiate team that plays in the West Coast Conference. The soccer club, where you pay $350 per semester to play in tournaments against club programs from other schools.
He didn’t make it.
“Wait, what?” USD head coach Brian Quinn said, incredulously.
Sandmeyer was seated next to Quinn on the postgame interview podium following USD’s 1-0 win against UC Davis on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, explaining one of the crazier stories of redemption and resurrection in college soccer this season, from out of the sport to starting midfielder on a 14-2-2 team that plays at No. 10 seed Duke on Sunday (10 a.m., ESPN+).
Making it even sweeter: Sandmeyer began his college career … at UC Davis.
“For me personally,” he said Thursday night, “it was obviously very special.”
The 6-foot-4 Sandmeyer led Saint Augustine to a 14-2-1 record and a SoCal Regional championship, then headed to UC Davis. He redshirted as a freshman, training with the team but not playing to preserve his eligibility.
He never got to his second season.
Sandmeyer’s version: “I had a meeting with the coach. We just had, I guess, a difference of opinion on certain things. I think he felt like he couldn’t coach me anymore. At that point, he put me off the team.”
Aggies coach Dwyane Shaffer’s version: “When Jack left, it was disappointing because we had groomed him for a year and gave him a great opportunity to be part of us at a great institution like UC Davis. One day he just said, ‘I’m out.’ That was it, that was the end of the conversation. It was, oh, all right, good luck, Jack. I’m happy that he landed here with Brian.”
The path from UCD to USD wasn’t that simple, that linear.
Sandmeyer returned home and played with San Diego Internacional of the United Premier Soccer League, a low-level league with more than 400 teams across the country. He enrolled at USD strictly as a student. He figured he’d try out for the club program for fun.
“I think they had an excess of guys and they didn’t bring me on,” Sandmeyer said. “I thought, OK, this might be where I’m done with soccer.”
Keith Miller, his coach at San Diego Internacional, had other ideas and called Quinn.
“He said, ‘Oh, you have to take a look at Jack Sandmeyer,’” Quinn said. “I was thinking, ‘Not another walk-on.’ I mean, you get (suggestions for) walk-ons all the time and they never pan out.”
But Quinn is a nice guy and invited Sandmeyer to a spring tryout.
“I went into the tryout really nervous, not expecting what happened,” said Sandmeyer, who has another year of eligibility. “I felt it might be my last opportunity to play soccer at this high level. I wanted to give it everything I’ve got. Luckly, somehow I made it on this team and we’ve had the most amazing season from the start.
“I know how lucky I am. I’m appreciative every time I get to step on that field. It’s so inspiring to me.”
Sandmeyer didn’t just make the team. He started 17 of 18 games as a defensive midfielder in Quinn’s 3-5-2 system, ranks third in minutes played and was named second-team all-conference. He nearly scored Thursday night, his rocketed shot slamming off the post in the second half.
“He solved a lot of issues of what we were trying to do playing-wise,” Quinn said. “He’s really influential in what we do. The game in San Francisco, where we were under the gun for large portions of the game because he was suspended, it shows the value he brings to our team. … He makes other guys around him better.”
On Thursday, as fate would have it, he was facing former teammates, former roommates. The victory was USD’s first in the NCAA Tournament in a decade and first since Quinn took over as head coach.
“Yeah, it’s great to see him,” said senior forward Keegan Walwyn-Bent of Sandmeyer, his roommate at UC Davis. “It’s great to see that he’s doing well. I’m happy for him, great guy.”
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