Official D2CCA Release
INDIANAPOLIS – It was a successful year on the pitch for Great Midwest Athletic Conference teams as nine student-athletes were officially named to the Division II Conference Commissioner’s Association (D2CCA) All-Midwest Region Team for men’s soccer.
The postseason continues for No. 2 seed Lake Erie in the NCAA Championship Super Region 3 bracket as the Storm prepare to face No. 6 Fort Hays State on Thursday from UIndy. LEC is in semifinals, also known as the Sweet 16, after defeating No. 7 Lewis.
Lake Erie (16-3-1 overall) also captured the Great Midwest regular season and conference tournament titles while Cedarville and Ohio Dominican each earned at-large bids in the NCAA Championship field.
A total of 26 student-athletes from either the Great Midwest, Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) or Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC), were named to the first or second team.
Three standouts were named to the first team while six more earned status on the second team. The composition included (4) forwards, (4) midfielders, (4) defenders and (1) goalkeeper in addition to the Midwest Region Player of the Year (Rade Novakovich, Wisconsin-Parkside) for the 2021 campaign.
Named to the first team were scoring machines for their respective programs, Ayden Von Essen from LEC and Patrick O’Halloran from Walsh. Earning a first-team nod on the defensive side of the ball was Ohio Dominican’s Jaxson Szabo.
Von Essen and Szabo each earned individual honors as the Great Midwest Offensive Player of the Year and Great Midwest Defensive Player of the Year. O’Halloran was just one of two sophomores on the first team (Eli Dulle, UIndy).
The Great Midwest Goalkeeper of the Year from Cedarville, Jared Zacharias, was one of three Yellow Jackets on the second team with midfielder Pedro Alvares and defender Jonny Stephens. Also tabbed with second team honors was Findlay midfielder Nick McCracken, Lake Erie defenseman Ben Wiemann and Ashland forward Justin Libertowski.
Libertowski and Stephens were also recently named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District First Team. All D2CCA first-team award winners will be placed in consideration for the next step of voting for All-American honors.
The Division II Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) encourages and promotes Division II athletics and high standards of sportsmanship as important elements of higher education. The CCA is a key communications link among the conferences as they discuss
views, policies and regulations that impact Division II intercollegiate athletics and works closely with the NCAA as a communications channel to NCAA Division II member colleges and universities.