Wingate’s Montgomery Headlines SAC Women’s Soccer Award Winners
Wingate forward Jade Montgomery has won her second-straight SAC Women’s Soccer Player of the Year award, highlighting Wednesday’s announcement of the conference’s regular-season accolades.
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Wingate forward Jade Montgomery has won her second-straight SAC Women's Soccer Player of the Year award, highlighting Wednesday's announcement of the conference's regular-season accolades.
Montgomery led the SAC in nearly every offensive category, finishing atop the conference leaderboard with 35 points, 13 goals, nine assists and 57 shots. The junior had four multi-goal matches and four game winners, and her point total was the 11th-best in the nation.
Montgomery also leads a foursome of All-SAC First Team forwards, joining Catawba's Mary Kirkman and Lenoir-Rhyne's Garcelle Alequine and Leah Mullins.
Alequine's nine goals tied for second in the SAC and her five assists tied for seventh, while Kirkman tied for fifth in the conference with seven goals while adding four assists. Mullins – last year's SAC Freshman of the Year and SAC Tournament MVP – finished with six goals and six assists, which tied for third and tied for eighth, respectively, on the league leaderboard.
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Making up the All-Conference First Team midfielders are Newberry's Gabrielle Brodie, Wingate's Taryn Grivois, Brevard's Yuki Soga, Tusculum's Monica Perez and Queens' Caitlyn Rodrigues. Perez and Rodrigues tied in the voting for the final first-team midfield spot.
Grivois tied for third in the SAC with six assists while Brodie finished the regular season with 13 total points, Soga tallied 11 points and Perez had seven.
Rodrigues, meanwhile, also earned SAC Freshman of the Year accolades after finishing tied for fifth in the SAC with seven goals and tied for seventh in assists with five.
Wingate's Chandler Murphy, Lenoir-Rhyne's Amber Madriaga, Newberry's Brayden Miller and Lincoln Memorial's Sam Adams were selected to the All-SAC First Team as defenders. Murphy and Madriaga anchored defenses that both allowed only six goals during conference play, while Miller finished with a pair of goals and assists and Adams finished with one assist.
Coker goalkeeper Lizz Morris – who led the nation with 156 saves during the regular season – completes the All-SAC First Team. Morris also ranked third in the SAC with a save percentage of 84.3-percent.
Earning All-Conference Second Team forward accolades are Queens' Brooke Foil and Kelli Gottry, LMU's Michelle Hunter and Newberry's Breanna Naranjo, while Lenoir-Rhyne's Hanna Kiebel and Emmi Dun and Catawba's Sophie Waller earned second-team midfield honors.
The second-team defenders are Wingate's Brandi Baldwin and Macy Franklin, Anderson's Faith Johannes, Catawba's Anna Toole and Queens' Ashley Osiecki, and Anderson's Kaitlyn Neipp is the second-team keeper.
Lenoir-Rhyne's Cally Morril was chosen as the SAC Coach of the Year for the second-straight season after guiding the Bears to their fourth-straight conference title. L-R finished the regular season 13-3-1 overall and 9-1-1 in league play, climbing as high as 11th in the NSCAA national rankings.
[Complete SAC women's soccer All-Conference teams and stat champions]
