ANNVILLE, Pa. – After a very successful four-year career on the pitch and in the classroom, senior
Emil Sjoberg (Stockholm, Sweden/Tyreso Gymnasium) (Stockholm, Sweden/Tyreso Gymnasium) received one of the highest honors bestowed by the conference as he was named the Middle Atlantic Conferences Men's Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the conference office announced on Tuesday.
The MAC selects one player in each sport to receive the exclusive Scholar-Athlete award, recognizing one senior between the Freedom and Commonwealth Conferences that best combines excellence on the playing field and in the classroom. To be nominated for the award, a senior must have a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.20 (on a 4.00 scale) and must provide a meaningful contribution to his or her team. The winner is determined based half on academic record and half on athletic prowess.
Sjoberg entered his senior year with a 3.823 cumulative GPA as an economics and history double major and mathematics minor, the highest GPA of any male upperclassman to participate in a fall sport. A five-time Dean's List honoree (a GPA 3.60 or above), he is in line to receive departmental honors for both economics and history at graduation. The senior also will earn his third straight spot on the MAC Fall Academic Honor Roll when the Fall 2011 honorees are released later this week.
In addition to his success off the field, Sjoberg has also been an important member of the Manhattanville defensive unit, serving as team captain for two years and tying for eighth in school history with 67 matches started. He is a two-time NSCAA All-Mid-Atlantic Region selection and one of only two four-time All-Freedom Conference first-team honorees in program history. In 68 career matches, Sjoberg scored eight goals with four assists for 20 points as a defender, including a career-high three goals and three assists for nine points as a junior in 2010. As a senior, he had three goals and one assist for seven points in leading the Valiants to a program-record 15 wins and the second NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.
Sjoberg is only the second Valiant student-athlete to receive a Scholar-Athlete award since Manhattanville joined the conference in 2007, joining men's lacrosse student-athlete Joey Hasbrouck '10.
