If you could cite the performance of just one player most responsible for the resurgence to relevance of the men’s soccer program in the first decade of the 2000s, it would undoubtedly be goalkeeper
Jonathan L. “Jay” Barney.
The 5-foot-10 inch, 185-pound Barney helped rescue the program from nearly two decades of mediocrity (one season with a winning percentage of better than .600) by backstopping the Warriors to their first LEC playoff championship and first NCAA tournament berth as a senior in 2007, and launching a run of seven straight seasons of ten or more wins that included five Little East Conference playoff titles.
Barney, a native of nearby Mansfield, becomes the fifth alumnus of the powerhouse E.O. Smith boys’ soccer program to gain induction and the first Eastern goalkeeper to be enshrined (fourth overall) since 2009. An All-New England keeper in both of his starting seasons at E.O. Smith, Barney was immediately assigned the No. 1 goalkeeper position at Eastern, and responded by posting a road shutout in his collegiate debut on Sept. 1, 2004 – the first of eight shutouts (the second-most in a season in 40 years) that year.
When it was all said and done after four years (2004-07), Barney had recorded 23 full shutouts (and shared six more) in 66 career appearances with a 0.84 goals-against average and .859 save percentage in 5,596 career minutes. In 56 decisions, Barney won 24 and tied 11, with nearly half (nine) of his 21 losses coming by scores of 1-0.
At the time of graduation, Barney ranked first (in the last 40 years of the program) in full-match shutouts, GAA and save percentage, and second in minutes, appearances, and starts (62), and still ranks among the all-time top four in five of those categories and fifth in GAA. In addition, his save percentages of .885 as a junior and .880 as a senior rank 2-3 in a season in the last 40 years, with his goals-against averages of 0.68 as a senior and 0.70 as a junior still rate among the Top 10 in a season.
In the penultimate match of his career – coming in his final appearance at Thomas Nevers Field – Barney submitted a performance for the ages (not surprisingly, one which he lists as his favorite memory) by shutting out defending playoff champion Keene State College with nine saves over 110 minutes of a scoreless overtime duel, then applying an exclamation point to the season’s reclamation project by saving two of the Owls’ five penalty kicks that assured Eastern, in dramatic fashion, of its first LEC playoff title.
In the PK session where each team alternates five penalty kicks, Barney’s first save foiled the Owls from taking a (what would be a nearly insurmountable) 2-0 lead. With the shootout tied at 2-2, Barney put the Warriors in position for the win by turning away Ryan Farnsworth’s bid with a full-length dive to his right on Keene’s fifth PK, and sophomore teammate Nicholas Boretti drove the game-winner cleanly past Keene keeper Cal Mintz that set off a wild Nevers Field celebration.
In the two LEC playoff tournament victories, Barney made 11 saves in 200 shutout minutes – his sixth and seventh shutouts in 20 starts that season. For his effort, Barney was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player (to date, the only Eastern goalie to win the award among the program’s six LEC playoff MVPs).
Over the course of the final seven starts of his career, Barney amassed a streak of 555:06 scoreless minutes (6+ games of 90 minutes) which began after allowing a late first-half penalty kick goal in a 1-0 home loss to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Oct. 16 and ending nine minutes into an NCAA tournament loss in the final match of his career more than three weeks later.
For the better part of the last 16 years, Barney has continued to support the program as a goalkeeper coach under DeVito.
A three-time team captain and the team’s freshman MVP, Barney’s athletic resume is extensive. As a senior, he was named
fourth-team All-New England Region and to the New England Intercollegiate Soccer League (NEISL) Senior All-Star Game, repeated as LEC Defensive Player-of-the-Year (the LEC did not begin naming a Goalkeeper-of-the-Year until 2022), earned a spot on All-LEC team for the third time (twice as a first-teamer), and was voted as Eastern’s Male Athlete-of-the-Year. In addition to second-team All-LEC honors as a freshman, Barney was named LEC and Eastern’s Rookie-of-the-Year.
A resident of West Hartford, Barney holds a B.A. Degree in Sport & Leisure Management and is employed as an assistant loan processing manager at RCN Capital in South Windsor.
