Sept. 13, 2010
• Patriot League Release | PL Stats | Navy Stats
CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- For the second straight week, a pair of Navy men's soccer freshmen earned weekly honors from the Patriot League. Martin Sanchez and Patrick Sopko were named Patriot League / BRINE Defensive Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week respectively, the league office announced on Monday afternoon.
Its the second time in as many weeks that Navy players have won two of the four weekly awards handed out by the Patriot League. Following the first week of play, freshman Dave Arnold (Baltimore, Md.) was named the Offensive Player of the Week and Sopko was named the Rookie of the Week. Sopko earns his second straight Rookie of the Week accolade.
Sanchez, a freshman defenseman from Salisbury, Md., has been a key figure in Navy's resurgent defensive effort. In Saturday's 2-0 win over UMBC, Sanchez and his teammates held UMBC offensive standouts Levi Houapeu and Andrew Bulls to just five combined shots and no points in the two-goal victory. The duo had entered the game with 27 shots and 15 points between them and were the nation's returning leading scorers from the year before. As a team, the Retrievers mustered just 11 shots, with several of them coming in the last 10 minutes as they were trying to get on the board.
So far this year, Sanchez has played 263 of a possible 270 minutes. During that span, Navy has allowed just one goal in three games, leading the Patriot League in fewest goals allowed (1), goals against average (0.33), shutouts (2) and fewest shots allowed per game (8.7).
Meanwhile, Sopko, a freshman forward from Gloucester, Va., earns Rookie of the Week honors for the second straight week to start his career. He tallied Navy's first goal, the game-winner, late in the first half of Navy's 2-0 victory over UMBC. Sopko has scored a point in all three games to start his career and is tied for the team lead with seven points and leads the squad in assists with three. Sopko ranks tied for first in the Patriot League in points per game (2.33) and assists per game (1.00), is second in points (7), tied for second in assists (3) and tied for fourth in goals (2) and goals per game (0.67).
It marks the first time in Navy soccer history that two freshmen have won Patriot League weekly awards and just the fifth time in Navy history that two players have won weekly awards in the same week. Navy and Colgate (3-0-1) are the last remaining unbeatens in the Patriot League.
Navy will hit the road for its next two games, traveling to Delaware on Wednesday, Sept. 15, and then to UNC Greensboro on Saturday, Sept. 18. Live stats will be available for both games, while free video for the UNC Greensboro game will be available on NavySports.com(.)
The Mids' next home game will be Wednesday, Sept. 22, vs. La Salle at 7:00 pm.
# GO NAVY #
