Western Connecticut Soccer Player
Dies In Auto Accident
Western Connecticut Soccer Player
Dies In Auto Accident
Western
Connecticut State University 21-year-old Aristides “Ari”
Tsingerliotis, a junior captain of the men’s soccer team, died as
the result of a weekend car accident.
Tsingerliotis died Saturday
afternoon at Yale New Haven Hospital, some 12 hours after he was
injured in the accident on Interstate 95 in West Haven early
Saturday morning.
Tsingerliotis, who lived at Grasso Hall on
the Westside campus, was a resident of Norwalk and played soccer and
ice hockey at Norwalk High School before graduation in June of 2000.
He was a two-time Little East Conference
sweeper, being named to the league’s All-Star First Team this past
fall.
Throughout his collegiate career,
Tsingerliotis led the Colonials in minutes played including this
past season, when the they advanced to the championship game of the
Little East Conference Tournament.
"He
was the heart and soul of the team. He had a tremendous competitive
spirit,” Colonials Men’s Soccer Head Coach Wayne Mones said.
"The players feel like they’ve lost a brother and I feel like
I lost a son.”
The Western Connecticut State
University community, students and teammates were in mourning after
hearing the news on Monday.
"He was tough as nails,” said Mark
Pataky, Tsingerliotis’ roommate at Western Connecticut and the
starting goal keeper for the Colonials’ soccer team. "We
called ourselves soldiers on the field. That’s how we thought our
ourselves.”
"Nothing could take him down,” said
Phil Taborda, another team member and a friend of Tsingerliotis
since elementary school in Norwalk. "Knock him down and he’d
be right back up again.”
"He was an iron man as a player,”
said Mones, "the kind of kid who would never accept losing.”
Funeral services will be held Friday, May 9
at 10 a.m. in the St. George Greek Orthodox Church, 238 West Rocks
Road, Norwalk. Internment will take place in St. John
Cementery, Richards Avenue, Norwalk.
Calling hours are Thursday from 3 to 5 and
7 to 9 at the Collins Funeral Home, 92 East Avenue, Norwalk.
Information
for this release was obtained from as story by John Pirro