Men's Soccer MAAC Awards
Flath 1st Team, Rookie of Year, Halliday 2nd Team, Holmes All-Rookie Team
Six Broncs MAAC All-Academic
FAIRFIELD, CT—The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference announced the All-MAAC and All-Academic Soccer Teams Thursday evening at the Championship Awards dinner.
“Six players making All-Academic is great,” said Rider head coach Charlie Inverso, “especially since that is more than half of the returnees we had who were eligible for the award.”
Rider freshman Christian Flath (Bargeshagen, Germany) was named First Team All-MAAC and was named the MAAC Rookie of the Year.
Rider sophomore Sonimi Halliday (Sicklerville, NJ/Timber Creek) was named to the Second Team All-MAAC and freshman Warren Holmes (Stoke on Trent, England), along with Flath, was named to the All-Rookie Team.
Flath ranked second in the MAAC in assists (8), third in points (20) and seventh in goals (6). “Christian had a great first year,” Inverso said. “He was instrumental in a lot of our scoring. He has a great future and has a chance to be one of the all-time Rider greats.”
Halliday scored five goals from his defensive position, all on set pieces, and was fourth in the MAAC in game-winning goals with three. “Sonimi is the poster child for what we are trying to do here,” Inverso said. “After starting just a handful of games as a freshman he worked hard to get better and better. He's going to be one of our leaders next season. And Warren stepped in and did a great job. He was a major factor in our best statistic, lowering our goals against average almost in half from last year. He played a big role in that.”
The last time Rider had an All-MAAC performer was 2009 when Andrew Cotes was named Second Team All-MAAC. The last First Team All-MAAC Bronc was Bob Francis in 1999.
This season the Rider Broncs won the most games in 13 years and placed six players on the MAAC All-Academic team.
Heading the list of Broncs is senior Eric Elgin (Mechanicsburg, PA/Cumberland Valley), a District II All-Academic selection whose name is currently on the Capital One Academic All-America ballot. "Elgin is the guy that has set the tone for all of the young players to follow,” Inverso said.
Elgin possesses a 3.97 cumulative grade point average as an Accounting major and started every game for Rider as the center back..
Also on the All-Academic team are junior Ryan Walsh (Chesterfield, NJ/Northern Burlington Regional), sophomore Devon Downs (Hamilton, NJ/Steinert), sophomore Federico Centurion (Stirling, NJ/Watchung Hills), sophomore James Greco (Long Valley, NJ/West Morris) and sophomore Robert Kroschwitz (Pipersville, PA/Palisades).
Walsh owns a 3.648 g.p.a. while majoring in Secondary Education/Mathematics. Downs is a Business Administration major with a 3.363, Centurion majors in Accounting and has a 3.285, Greco has a 3.67 as a Finance major and Kroschwitz has a 3.845, also majoring in Finance.
The Broncs won eight game this year, the most since the 2000 team finished 10-10.
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