Wednesday, October 20, 2021

PORTLAND, Ore. – Eighty-five GNAC student-athletes who have excelled on the pitch and in the classroom were selected to the 2021 GNAC Men’s Soccer All-Academic Team, presented by Barnes & Noble College. Four players have maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA, and two of them – Sawyer Price and Alex Nadermann – are goalkeepers for Northwest Nazarene.

Price, a recreation and sport management major from Olympia, Washington, earned his second selection to the All-Academic Team while playing all 1,005 minutes in goal for the Nighthawks this season, making 39 saves with three shutouts in 11 matches. Nadermann is a physics major from Redmond, Oregon who earned his third All-Academic Team selection. On the field, Nadermann started 13 games for NNU in 2019, allowing 1.51 goals per game while making 39 saves.

Northwest Nazarene led the way as a program with 20 selections. Close behind was Western Washington with 17 selections and Seattle Pacific with 16 selections.

The other two student-athletes with a 4.0 are Saint Martin’s defender Seth Kobata, an exercise and sport science major, and Seattle Pacific midfielder Tyler Speer, a biochemistry major. Both are first-time All-Academic honorees.

Price and Nadermann also headline 37 repeat selections to the roster, a mark that includes 14 three-time honorees and five four-time honorees: Montana State Billings’s Luca Battistotti and Seattle Pacific’s Jose Benavides, Alex Mejia, Nik Reierson and Travis Swallow. All five of those players have started at least eight matches for their teams, and Mejia is currently the GNAC’s leading scorer with 11 goals.

To qualify for the GNAC All-Academic Teams, presented by Barnes & Noble College, nominees must be of sophomore eligibility or greater, have a minimum cumulative GPA or 3.20 or greater, be a letterwinner on their team and must be in their second year at the nominating institution. 

Thanks to eligibility waivers provided by the NCAA due to the cancellation of the 2020 season, players who continue to hold freshman eligibility but are in their second season of competition at the nominating institution were eligible for selection to the GNAC All-Academic Team.