2018 Spring LC Magazine

bdullahi Abdi ’18 had a question he wanted to ask anyone else who might understand. A three-time all-region performer himself, someone who knows the pace of elite-level Division III soccer, Abdi asked, “Do you really think Sainclair shouldn’t have been higher on the All-American list? He was a center back that scored 11 goals.” When talking about Armel Sainclair Tueno Nguimfack ’19 after he scored two goals in a win over nationally-ranked Scranton, fifth-year Lycoming head coach Nate Gibboney leaned forward at his desk and said, “Sainclair might be the best player in the country right now.” Those comments speak volumes to the impact of Second Team All-American Tueno on a record-breaking men’s soccer team at Lycoming College. At 6 feet 1 inch and 192 pounds, Tueno is affectionately referred to as “Big Man” by Gibboney, even if he is the seventh-tallest player on the team. To anyone who watched him score goals in three of the team’s four postseason games this year, though, Big Man seems to fit. Tueno was born in 1996 in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon in East Africa. His father was an electrician in the city of more than two million before he moved to America in 2009. Two years later, his father reconnected the family in Silver Spring, Md. Tueno was set to begin his freshman year of high school and tried out for the Montgomery Blair High School soccer team. He thought he was pretty good. The coaches didn’t. For the next three years, Tueno worked at becoming a better player. He played on any club team that would have him. He grew — jumping nearly five inches from his junior to senior year of high school. His aggressiveness and tactical skill were enough to get him a spot with the Bethesda-Olney Academy, and he was named honorable mention all-state at Blair. Tueno was just four years removed from speaking French in his school in Cameroon, though, and his late growth spurt made him a late bloomer, and that put Lycoming’s Coach Gibboney on his doorstep instead of a Division I program. The criminal justice major is quick to point out how important the small community has been in helping him succeed in an English- speaking school. The growth of 32 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2018 SPRING MAGAZINE