Illinois State soccer senior midfielder Kate Del Fava was named the Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year for Division I women's soccer and headlined the 2019 Academic All-America® First Team, selected by College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and announced Thursday.
The Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year is the top award presented annually by CoSIDA in each collegiate sport. Del Fava is the first Illinois State student-athlete in school history to be recognized with the honor. Additionally, she is the only Missouri Valley Conference men's or women's soccer athlete to ever receive the award.
This is the second year in a row that Del Fava has received Academic All-America® accolades, as the Kenosha, Wisconsin, native, was named to Academic All-America® Second Team in 2018.
Del Fava has maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA throughout her soccer career while double-majoring in Pre-Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science and minoring in Chemistry. She was named an Illinois State Robert G. Bone Scholar for the 2019-20 academic year, the highest university-wide honor to be bestowed upon undergraduate students. Only 14 of Illinois State's more than 20,000 students were tabbed for this honor.
The midfielder capped off her collegiate career with a stellar senior season, leading the Valley in goals (17), points (39) and game-winning goals (6), while also sweeping the MVC Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards at the end of the season. Additionally, Del Fava earned the MVC Elite 17 Award, was recognized as one of 10 Senior CLASS Award finalists in the nation and set the record for most MVC Offensive Player of the Week honors in a single season (5).
Del Fava played in every game since arriving on campus in her four years for the Redbird soccer program and started in all but two. She ranks in the top-10 in ISU program history in goals (6th), points (7th), game-winning goals (4th) and holds the record for most minutes played by a field player with 7,099 minutes logged.
CoSIDA began the distinguished Academic All-America® program in 1952, and since then, has honored thousands of deserving student-athletes from numerous sports across all divisions with these elite Academic All-America® scholar-athlete honors.
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