NORMAL, Ill. - Illinois State soccer freshman Sasha Reiber was named the Brine/Missouri Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Week Monday, Oct. 6. Reiber earned the first Valley honor of her career after helping the Redbirds to a 1-0 win over Creighton Oct. 4. She is the first freshman to win a weekly award this year in the conference, offensive or defensive.
Reiber made a career-high eight saves in goal for the Redbirds to post her second shutout of the season. She helped keep the score knotted at zero for the entire length of regulation, which allowed senior Mel Routledge to score the game-winning goal with just 1.4 seconds left in the game.
Head coach Drew Roff felt that Reiber's performance was an integral part of ISU claiming its first conference win of the season against Creighton.
"Sasha had a very strong performance at Creighton on Saturday," Roff said. "She made the saves she needed to make and she managed the game well. Our team did a nice job defensively overall and didn't give up too many scoring chances, but when we did need Sasha to come up big, she delivered."
Reiber made her first-career appearance in the second half against Western Illinois and has played every minute in goal for the Redbirds since then, including starting the last four games. Since becoming the regular goalkeeper, she has posted a record of 3-1-1, a .783 save percentage and a 1.06 goals against average.
ISU junior Katie Grill-Donovan earned the Brine/MVC Defensive Player of the Week award Sept. 2. Drake's Elizabeth Woerle was named Brine/MVC Offensive Player of the Week this week.
