Horizon League Release
INDIANAPOLIS (1/30/2015) -- Five Titans took home academic accolades from the Horizon League as the conference released its' Fall All-Academic Teams on Friday.
A total of 52 student-athletes from five fall sports were honored in balloting by the League's faculty athletics representatives and sports information directors. The sports in the fall honored were men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country and volleyball.
Valparaiso led the conference with 10 honorees, followed by nine from Oakland, Milwaukee honoring seven and Green Bay adding six to the list of honorees. Detroit, UIC and Youngstown State honored five student-athletes, respectively. Wright State slotted four on the All-League Teams while Green Bay rounded out the voting with one.
Men's and women's soccer had a pair of representatives as senior
Haley Burtraw and junior
Sara Zawacki earned the honor for the women, while senior
Matt Ybarra and junior
Nathan Steinwascher were selected from men's soccer, and sophomore
Ryan Leahy from men's cross country.
Burtraw – who holds a 3.85 GPA in sociology - was the Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-Horizon League this past season. She was also on the Horizon League All-Tournament Team.
Zawacki is a nursing major with a 3.97 GPA, and played all 19 games with six starts for the Horizon League runner-up Titans. She tallied three goals and six points on the season and was named the HL Offensive Player of the Week on Oct. 27 after netting two markers – including the game winner – in overtime against Oakland.
Ybarra concluded a great collegiate career and was selected Second Team All-Horizon League as well as to the Capital One Academic All-America Second Team by CoSIDA. He has a 3.93 GPA in business and ended his career starting all 20 games and recording two goals and six assists for 10 points.
Steinwascher is another business major with a 3.63 GPA. He was the Horizon League Goalkeeper of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year as he ended the season with a league-high-tying seven shutouts as well as a league-best 81.2 save percentage.
Leahy was a key contributor to the squad's defense of its Horizon league title, taking 13th at the HL Championship for Second Team honors. The harrier with a 3.95 GPA in pre-med set a career time at the league meet in the 8k and came back to place 138th overall at the 10k NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship.
The Horizon League recognizes student-athletes with seasonal Academic All-League Teams in each of its 19 championship sports. To be eligible for Academic All-Horizon League consideration, a student-athlete must have a cumulative grade-point-average of 3.20 or higher (based on a 4.00 scale) and have completed at least one year at the member institution, having earned 24 semester-hour or 36 quarter-hour credits.
