By Kate Stockrahm
The Flint City Bucks have signed three University of Wisconsin players for the upcoming USL League Two (USL2) season, pending league and federation approval.
If all is okayed, Ellis Jones, Thomas Raimbault, and Matthew Zachemski will join the Bucks after helping the University of Wisconsin Badgers to a 7-5-3 record, just one goal shy of Big Ten Tournament qualification.
According to a Bucks press release just before the new year, Ellis Jones is sophomore defender who started 13 matches this past fall, scoring once. He is a native of Wednesbury, England and has already appeared in USL2, most recently with the Western Conference champions FC Tucson last summer.
Thomas Raimbault is a junior forward and native of Wellington, New Zealand. He recently finished his second season at Wisconsin where he has six goals and four assists in 28 games. Before transferring to the Badgers, Raimbault made 15 appearances as a freshman at the University of California Los Angeles, including in two NCAA Tournament matches during the Bruins’ Round of 16 run.
Before college, Raimbault played club soccer with Vancouver Whitecaps FC, amassing 36 goals for the club’s U-17, U-19 and U-23 youth sides. He is also on the New Zealand national team radar, having attended camps at both the U-17 and U-20 levels.
Matthew Zachemski is a freshman midfielder that tallied three goals and three assists while starting 14 matches. He was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman team after this past fall season.
An attacking midfielder, the Itasca, Illinois native was also named by TopDrawerSoccer.com to its nationwide freshman second team, and previously played for Sockers FC in Chicago.
The Bucks have qualified for league playoffs 26 times in 28 chances — claiming four national titles (most recently in 2019), 11 conference championships (most recently in 2023), and 16 division crowns (most recently in 2024). The news of the incoming Badger trio arrives on the heels of learning two beloved Bucks players were selected by Major League Soccer (MLS) teams in the 2025 MLS SuperDraft at the end of December 2024.
Michael Adedokun, a senior from Ohio State University, was picked 13th overall by CF Montréal and Barzee Blama, a sophomore at Mercer University was taken 77th overall by Charlotte FC.
With Adedokun’s and Blama’s achievements, the Bucks have now sent 107 alumni to MLS since the draft began in 1999, remaining the world’s only club to see a player join the league in all 25 years of the SuperDraft era.
