Neumann soccer standout Dominic Petruzzelli is a real-life Renaissance man

Showcasing prowess both on the field and off, Petruzzelli was just awarded as "Man of the Year" by the Atlantic East Conference

Warminster native and Neumann defender Dominic Petruzelli was just named the Man of the Year in the Atlantic East Conference.Read moreNeumann Athletics

by Tyler DelPercio

Published July 23, 2025, 8:00 a.m. ET

Imagine getting a call to discover you’re the man.

Meet Dominic Petruzzelli, a rising senior and defender for the men’s soccer team at Neumann University. To cap off a brilliant 2024 season as a student-athlete, Petruzelli enters this season as the reigning Man of the Year in the Atlantic East Conference.

Established in 2019, the award is given annually to one male student-athlete in the conference who demonstrates excellent academic and athletic skills throughout his career. Petruzelli is the first recipient from Neumann.

“It’s honestly just amazing,” said Petruzzelli. “I follow the Atlantic East on Instagram, and I always see these posts come around every July, and I’m like ‘Aw man, these are really, really cool people with awesome stories’ and now I’m the person who received this award … it’s just really cool to see that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed among peers.”

The Man of the Year award joins a laundry list of accolades such as the Atlantic East Defensive Player of the Year and first-team all-conference nod that Petruzzelli racked up in his first year at Neumann.

The Warminster native started his college soccer journey at Cabrini before transferring to Neumann after the 2023-24 academic year, following Cabrini’s closure. He played an integral role in bringing a second straight conference championship to Neumann, as the Knights allowed just two goals to conference opponents all season and finished the year with a 1.05 goals- against average in 21 games.

“Early on, you knew you were getting a kid that was going to be highly talented after a really good freshman year,” said Neumann coach Erik Temple. “We made a push to try to get him [after the news of the closing] and he said, ‘Listen, I’ve talked to my classmates and we’ve decided we’re decided we’re going to run it back and try and win a championship [at Cabrini] in our final year and I’ll give you a call after the season to resume the recruitment.’”

Despite it being his first year at Neumann, Petruzzelli made an immediate off-the-field impact in the Neumann community. He serves as the president of the Neumann Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and Atlantic East National SAAC representative. He’s also chairperson for a subcommittee at Neumann focused on mental and physical health.

Additionally, he’s a part of the executive board for the school’s student section while working in the admissions office. He also serves as a sensory director for the Eagles Autism Foundation, and is a mathematics tutor. This is all in addition to keeping a 4.0 GPA in mathematics and secondary education.

“He’s one of those kids where I’d say that if he wasn’t busy, he’d go crazy, so he’d rather be crazy busy,” said Temple. “He just loves this place. I said, ‘Man, you might be the first person with a statue here. Just a great kid, really hardworking. Cares about the community and really invests in himself.”

“The main thing there is that it’s just the community of my friend group; my teammates, Neumann, my Cabrini community that I was previously a part of,” said Petruzzelli. “I see them smile and laugh at games, events … It’s those little moments that I see that’s like, ’Oh wow, this is why it’s all worthwhile and what I do’ … I was in the dunk tank for D3 week. Even if my best friends are dunking me in the dunk tank, it’s those moments that make the behind-the-scenes work with my executive board, the rest of the SAAC members, so worthwhile.”

With such a busy schedule, it was only fate that Petruzzelli would be in the middle of something when he was notified of the award.

“I’m driving into work. I sign on to this Zoom meeting, and [Neumann athletic director John Krimmel] is like, ‘I just wanted to tell you that you were named the Atlantic East Man of the Year,’” said Petruzzelli.

“He’s like the post is coming out the next day, and I said, ‘Alright, great.’ I was going to be traveling that day to Minnesota. My plane leaves at 11:15, and I get on the plane, put my phone on airplane mode, and it just so happened that the post came out at 11 o’clock. I land in Minnesota and my phone is just blowing up with text messages and Instagram reposts so I’m like, ‘Oh, I guess it came out.’ It was overwhelming a little bit, but the support was awesome and everyone was so excited.”

It’ll be hard to top this season for Petruzzelli, but both he and Temple have their sights set on something greater.

“I’m going to steal the Nick Sirianni speech to the Eagles after they won the Super Bowl like ‘The perfume, smell it but don’t drink it, it’s poisonous,’” said Temple. “The challenge to him is you’re doing all these things, but you now have a big target on your back and [are] trying to push him to take the next step. How do you become an All-Region? How do you become an All-American?”

“I think the team this year is set up to win some NCAA tournament games,” said Petruzzelli. “We would love to three-peat [in the conference] ... Continue to make improvements on little things from a SAAC perspective. We raised the bar this year, can we do it again and go above and beyond? After that, can we set it up for the future when I leave and the rest of the executive board leaves? … Can we set up Neumann; Neumann’s men’s soccer, Neumann SAAC, the Neumann community for the future? We can lay the foundation and be a stepping stone and give them the blueprint, but can we put the next generation in line to succeed.”