Men's Soccer 8/20/2026 11:29:00 AM

No. 10 Blinn ready for new challenges after historic 2025 run

The Buccaneers reached the NJCAA Division I national tournament for the first time last season

Men's Soccer 8/20/2026 11:29:00 AM

No. 10 Blinn ready for new challenges after historic 2025 run

The Buccaneers reached the NJCAA Division I national tournament for the first time last season

The standard has been raised at Blinn College.

Now Michael McBride has to see how much he can get out of a new group of players.

Just one year after leading the Buccaneers to the most successful season in program history, McBride enters 2026 with a team that looks remarkably different from the one that made history last fall.

Blinn went 14-5-1 in 2025, won the Region 14 South division with a 10-2 record and advanced to the Gulf South District semifinals. The Bucs then earned the first NJCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship tournament berth in program history, receiving an at-large bid to the national tournament.

They may have gone 0-2 in pool play, but Blinn was hardly outmatched. The Bucs lost 2-1 to both No. 3 Daytona State College and No. 5 Barton Community College.

Midfielder Sam Sebagabo added another piece of history, becoming the first player in program history to earn NJCAA Division I Men's Soccer All-America first-team honors after leading the Bucs with 10 goals.

Now Sebagabo and most of his teammates are gone.

Blinn enters the 2026 season ranked No. 10 nationally, but only eight players from last year's team return. The roster also includes four sophomore transfers and 24 freshmen, leaving McBride with almost 30 new players to integrate.

"Last year's team required more managing than coaching," McBride said. "This year, I think this group will need a little more coaching than managing."

McBride has experienced this before.

In 2019, his first season as Blinn's head coach, the Bucs also had significant roster turnover, with only a handful of players returning from the previous season. McBride brought in more than 30 new players and began building a new team from the ground up. That team finished 10-7-1 with an impressive 9-4-1 region record and qualified for the Gulf South District Tournament.

The difference this time is impossible to overlook, as this year's squad will look to build on program-changing history.

"We're looking at growth and how much we can get out of a new group," McBride said. "An enormous portion of the team is brand new, which is exciting for a coach because the ceiling doesn't really exist. We don't know how far we can go or what we can do yet, and that unknown is exciting."

The returning players will play an important role in establishing what that next chapter looks like.

Midfielders Jordan Franco, Paolo Imeneo, and Mason Sorrels, forwards Joseph Udedi and Kayde Gielinck, defenders Malikai Fry and Benji Minkette, and goalkeeper Samir Bristol are back from last season's team.

Gielinck and Udedi each scored four goals in 2025, while Gielinck added five assists. Bristol also returns after starting five of his six appearances as a freshman, going 5-0 with four shutouts while allowing just two goals and making 12 saves.

He will compete with three freshmen for the starting goalkeeper position.

Every other position is seemingly up for grabs.

"Everyone is fighting for spots and playing time," Franco said. "You want the exposure, and you always want to be put in a position where you can help the team. At the end of the day, that's going to make the team a lot better."

That competition is already helping shape a team that is still learning how to play together.

"It's a great group to be around," McBride said. "They're a very coachable group, and they're starting to mold into a unit. Now the focus is on the smaller positional units molding into bigger units."

For the returning sophomores, that means their roles have changed, too.

"They were first-years last year, and they were elevated by the older players," McBride said. "We expect them to do the same thing for the new players this year."

Franco sees that responsibility as part of the job.

"We want to replicate the success we had last year and go even further," he said. "The freshmen are using that success to fuel themselves, and as returning players, it's our job to reassert that standard for the young guys."

The Bucs will also look different tactically.

With a talented midfield at McBride's disposal, Blinn plans to rely more heavily on its technical ability and possession game.

"The way we aim to play will be a bit of a departure from last season," McBride said. "That comes down to having a talented midfield."

Franco said the team's athletic profile has changed, but the identity being established is built around ball movement.

"We're a technical team that plans to move the ball and take care of it," he said. "Possession is going to be huge in how we move through teams and break them down."

That chemistry is developing both on and off the field.

"The chemistry is taking shape, both on and off the field," Franco said. "That contributes to how we play on the field. We know how to work with one another, and we want to play for each other."

McBride describes the team in similarly understated terms.

"We're more of a classical orchestra than a rock 'n' roll band," he said. "We're not super flashy, so to speak, but we're technically gifted."

The challenge will be translating that potential into results against a Region 14 field that promises to be as demanding as ever.

Blinn opens the season Friday at Southwestern Christian College before beginning region play Aug. 28 at No. 5 Tyler Junior College. The Apaches also qualified for nationals in 2025.

"The thing the lads should be looking forward to is that they're going to get every team's best every single match," McBride said.

Franco welcomes that challenge.

"There are plenty of good teams in the region," he said. "We just need to continue to work for that top spot. This year, we want to dominate and stay on top. We want to beat those teams."

For a group with so many unanswered questions, the best approach may be to avoid looking too far down the road.

Blinn learned that lesson last season.

"We had no expectations outside of the program to go as far as we did," Franco said. "We just have to take things one game at a time. If we look too far ahead, we could get caught, and it's all of our responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen."

Blinn has competed in intercollegiate athletics since 1903 and captured 53 national championships since 1987.

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