CIAO Soccer Hall of Fame Inducts Class of '23
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Community Italian-American Organization Soccer Hall of Fame Thursday inducted 11 new members in a ceremony at Berkshire Hills Country Club.
The Class of 2023 includes former student-athletes who won six Berkshire County MVP awards, 23 all-Berkshire selections, 12 all-Western Mass selections and three all-Massachusetts selections.
In addition to recognizing the great players of past high school soccer seasons, CIAO honored 21 current high school seniors with the annual CIAO Hall of Fame Scholarships.
Scholarship recipients include: Rylee Joy and Neal Brierley, Drury; Tia Kareh and Owen Dubrueil, Hoosac Valley; Isabella Lovato, Lee; Hailey Tobler and Thomas Leger, Lenox; Camryn Belisle and Ivan Liang, McCann Tech; Abigail Kinne and Colin Kinne, Monument Mountain; Emma Goewey and Michael Devoti, Mount Everett; Jane Skavlem and Joshua Rudin, Mount Greylock; Allison Schnopp and Angel Sandoval, Pittsfield; Tiffin Martin and Ezra Ezan, Taconic; Emma Belcher and Brady Payson, Wahconah.
The CIAO Soccer Hall of Fame Class of ‘23 includes:
Kelsie Dumas Gifford, Wahconah.
Legendary Wahconah coach Boog Powell said frequently that Dumas was “completely unafraid,” and certainly that is the Kelsie everyone saw on the field. She played up on top and was a four-year starter at WRHS, scored big game goals (and lots of them) but also had assists in big time big game. In fact many people thought she was probably too generous with the ball. She was rewarded with being named all-Berkshire, all-Western Mass and MVP her senior year. Dumas went on to have a stellar career at Emannuel College, ranking in the college’s all-time top 10 in goals and assists.
She is married to Casey Gifford, works at General Dynamics and their daughter Sage was born last summer.
Taylor Foehl, Mount Greylock
Foehl made every all-Everything team in high school. He was all-Berkshire and all-Western Mass and he too was named MVP in the county. He led his team to strong finishes in the state tournament all four years and won the state championship in 2008. In addition, his teams won more than five times the number of games they lost. He also started 75 consecutive games from 2006-09. Blair Dils was thrilled to have him on the field for that many games for 80 minutes. Taylor did not play soccer in college, electing instead to play squash.
He is very soon to get his MBA from Boston University and will work in higher education consulting.
Nate Hazen, Wahconah
Hazen had a huge impact on his teams while at Wahconah, scoring more than 60 percent of his team’s goals (69). He was a captain, a three time all-Berkshire and a Western Mass champion during his time at Wahconah. He went on to play at Clarkson University, where he was a captain and made the all-conference first team twice.
Hazen got his doctor of jurisprudence from George Mason and is a member of the South Carolina Bar. He works as the compliance officer and Controller at Hybrid Pathways.
He lives in Charleston, S.C., and is engaged to Kelsey Clary
Allison Hunt, Pittsfield
Hunt was a four-year starter at PHS, made all-Berkshire teams her sophomore, junior and senior years, and was a varsity captain her senior year. Pat West, the coach at Wahconah Regional at the time, said, “She was hard to beat. She was aggressive and covered all four corners of the goal.” She was outstanding in the county for four years (in more than one sport) and was recognized as the best female athlete at the end of her senior year in 2016. She played softball in college and was inducted into Olympia, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Athletic Honor Society.
Another nice aspect of inducting Allison is that eight years ago, she received a CIAO scholarship. She earned her MBA in management and is currently enrolled in a masters in engineering program. She is also in the Engineering Leadership Program at General Dynamics.
Bobby Kinne, Monument Mountain
Kinne was a four-year starter at Monument Mountain, a senior captain, a two time all-Berkshire and two-time all-Western Mass player. And he twice carried his team deep into the old-format state tournament. His soccer career is impressive because his true love was baseball. He carried that passion to Vassar where he was a four-year varsity starter and was captain his junior and senior year. He was named First Team all-Liberty League and was the 2015 Rookie of the year at Vassar.
He currently is the very successful (As all Red Sox and Yankee fans know) Coordinator of Major League Operations for the Tampa Bay Rays. Accepting the award for Bobby Kinne was his grandfather Mike, also a Hall of Famer.
Jessica Lopez, Monument Mountain
Lopez certainly has her soccer bona fides by being a two-time all-Berkshire first team player and she has her NSCAA State Diploma. And, while she didn’t play college soccer, she was fully involved in the sport. Her undergraduate thesis was titled: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona: A New Narrative of football rivalry in 1930s Spain. She also coached at the Berkshire Soccer Academy in the summer of 2014 under soccer greats: Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Tisha Venurini and Heather O’Reilly.
In her professional life after college, soccer also plays a leading role: She was the team leader in Soccer without Borders in Granada, Nicaragua. She was a sportswriter at Remezcla where she interviewed Pele, and she is the Team Liaison Officer/Interpreter/Assistant Venue Press Officer for various CONCACAF and US Soccer Events. She is married to Austin Lindberg and lives in West Hartford, Conn.
Nathan Mujumder, Mount Greylock
Majumder was also all-everything in high school soccer: Two-time all-Berkshire first team, Berkshire Coaches Co-MVP, All Eagle MVP, and he finished with 50 goals and 33 assists. He went on to Tufts where he continued to be a standout. As the captain of his 2016 team he led his team to a national championship team and was a member of another national champion at Tufts. He made the All-Nescac, and the NSCAA All Northeast Regional teams in 2015.
Subsequent to graduating from Tufts he has gone on to be a software engineer.
Morgan Matthews, Pittsfield
Matthews was a talented three-year varsity starter at PHS and was captain her senior year. She was twice named All-Eagle team and was an all-Berkshire team twice as well. She was the PHS MVP in her senior year. She was on teams that were Western Mass finalists in her junior and senior years in games that were nail-biters down to the last second.
She graduated from UMass in 2018 with a degree in applied mathematics and is a senior Business partner at National Grid and she also works at the TDGarden in guest experience.
Michael Peplowski, St. Joseph
Peplowski played in the middle of the field at St. Joseph and was a four-year starter and two-time captain. Mike made the All-Western Mass teams his junior and senior years and tied for the scoring lead in Western Mass his senior year with 24 goals and 17 assists. He was the county MVP his senior year finishing with 41 goals and 38 assists. He went on to have a strong career as a college player at Holy Cross and was team captain his senior year.
Mike works at Oracle Corporation from Boston. He still plays adult soccer and volunteers at a Boston Food Bank and as an admissions interviewer at Holy Cross.
Jackson Rich, Pittsfield
Rich is another center mid who was named the county MVP in 2016. He carried his teams to three Division 1 Western Massachusetts semifinal appearances. His personal honors are beyond impressive earning one all-Berkshire second team, two all-Berkshire first team and two all-Western Mass Division 1 team and, of course, that MVP award when he was a senior.
After high school, he went to Dartmouth where he was a two-time captain of the men’s club team. He led this squad to the finals in the Northeast Regionals playing against teams from all over the East Coast.
Jackson has had a rich career teaching physics and coaching at a charter school in Fall River. He then transitioned to education consulting where he currently works for Tyton Partners. He is continuing to play soccer in adult leagues but his focus is on long distance running. He has run three marathons in addition to a 50-mile trail run in Vermont. He just completed the Boston Marathon where he helped raise money for Boston Scores, an enrichment program for students in the Boston Schools.
Brent Powers, Wahconah
In the mid to late 1990s, Powers was the premier defender in Berkshire County. Brent was a three-year starter on a very strong Wahconah team and a key to the state finalist 1994 team. He also captained the 1996 Western Mass finalist team and was named the MVP in Berkshire County in ‘96. That same year he was named to the all-Western Mass first team. It was recognized that he did it the right way being named as the Sportsmanship Award winner in his senior year.
He played for four years at UMass Lowell and played every minute of every game in 1997.
Brent is an engineer and associate director at Bristol Myer Squibb but still continues his soccer activities as a coach at all levels with Sterling Soccer. He is married to Gina Powers and has two children, Amelia and Branden.
