Josh Bauer celebrates scoring the game-winning goal in the 2019 America East championship game. (Gil Talbot)
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Josh Bauer (Bedford, N.H.), New England’s most accomplished college soccer player since now-Chicago Fire center back Wyatt Omsberg (Scarborough, Maine), reflected as much Monday. With the impending America East season postponed to the spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he’s bypassing his final year at the University of New Hampshire in pursuit of a professional deal, undergraduate degree already in hand.
It’s a bittersweet situation for the center back, whose last game in a Wildcat uniform becomes an NCAA tournament second-round loss at Virginia Tech last November. Bauer recalls being “pissed off” at the final whistle and regrets not knowing that was his final game.
