Senior is second Maple Leaf in school history to get national award twice
GREENWOOD, Ind. — Goshen College men’s soccer midfielder Spencer Aeschliman earned his second straight Google Cloud Academic All-America first-team honor, selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America, on Monday.
Aeschliman, a senior physics major from Salem, Oregon, was one of three repeat selections on the 11-member national first team, which covered 202 NAIA schools.
The four-year team captain averaged 16 starts and 18 appearances in his time at Goshen, appearing in all but three games since his arrival on campus in 2015. He logged more than 6,000 minutes in that span, most on the team, and his 1,731 minutes in 2017 were the most of any GC field player since at least 2010.
On the field, Aeschliman was a first-team all-Crossroads League pick this fall after scoring a career-high 3 goals with 5 assists. He played in all 18 Maple Leaf games, making 14 starts, and put more than half of his 15 shot attempts on goal.
Goshen posted 21 defensive shutouts in Aeschliman’s four seasons, the first three of which came primarily as a defender. The team recorded at least three clean sheets and six wins in all four seasons, and the 2017 team’s eight shutouts were the most in the last quarter-century.
In the classroom, Aeschliman sports a 3.93 grade-point average, tied for the fourth-best on the first team. His education has extended outside of the college’s conventional semesters as well: he spent the summer of 2017 collecting and analyzing air quality data through GC’s Maple Scholars program.
Aeschliman is Goshen’s first male two-time Academic All-America selection and now owns two of the college’s 12 all-time honors. Erin Helmuth, a first-team pick in women’s track and field in 2012 and 2013, is the other two-time winner. Jan Dohnal and Greg Thiessen are the only other GC men’s soccer players to make the first team, both doing so in 2011.
Aeschliman is the son of Jeff and Margaret Aeschliman, both 1987 GC alumni. Jeff was a two-time all-conference selection in men’s soccer and a member of the NAIA’s 1986 Academic All-American team, not connected to the CoSIDA award. Margaret earned all-Hoosier Conference for Women honors in women’s tennis in 1986 and NAIA Scholar-Athlete recognition the following spring. His younger brother Stuart, a sophomore, is a two-time all-Crossroads League selection.
The Academic All-District and Academic All-America program, sponsored by Google Cloud and selected by CoSIDA, recognizes the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances on the field and in the classroom. The program separately recognizes soccer honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
In order to be considered for Academic All-District or Academic All-America teams, student-athletes must have completed two semesters on campus, carry a GPA of 3.3 or greater, be a starter or significant reserve in their athletic program and have been nominated by a CoSIDA member. Academic All-District and Academic All-America voting is conducted by the CoSIDA members in each region.