Bennett & Sanchez Earn All-Big East Men's Soccer Honors

We end the 2015 Marquette men's soccer season with a bit of good news at the end.  Junior midfielder Louis Bennett II was named to the all-Big East Second Team, and freshman defender Ruben Sanchez was named to the league's all-freshman team.

Bennett is being recognized for his all around play here, as he finished 2015 with only a goal and three assists to his name.  His responsibilities for the Golden Eagles this season were largely going to be tilted towards the defensive end with the trio of forwards that Marquette had up top with Kelmend Islami, C. Nortey, and David Selvaggi.    I expect that with those three men finishing their eligibility this season, we'll see a return to scoring from LB2 next season.

Sanchez played in all 17 matches for the Golden Eagles this season, making 16 starts at center back after Danny Jarosz was lost for the year to an injury in the season opener.  Replacing the guy who was supposed to be replacing Axel Sjoberg is a tall job (get it? Tall? Axel's 6'7"?), and it was a bit out of position for Sanchez, who's naturally a midfielder.  He acquitted himself admirably, though, even being named Defensive Player of the Week once.

Let's turn things over to the individual awards that the Big East handed out following the conclusion of the season, saving Goalkeeper of the Year for last, because OH BOY, do I have things to say.

Offensive Player of the Year: Fabian Herbers, F, Creighton

He's leading the country in points.  This wasn't hard.

Defensive Player of the Year: Joshua Yaro, D, Georgetown

He won the preseason version of this, and while I went with Creighton's Vincent Keller because he won some weekly awards this season and Yaro didn't, I can't really fault the coaches for sticking with Yaro if they still think he's the best guy.  Kind of unoriginal, though.

Midfielder of the Year: Timo Pitter, Creighton

I went with Butler's Vincent Mitchell.  Partly to just spread some awards around, but mostly because he leads midfielders in points and goals.  Pitter is 8th in the league in goals and doesn't register in the top 10 in assists, but I'm willing to concede that the league's coaches understand more about his value to Creighton than I do.

Freshman of the Year: JT Marcinkowski, GK, Georgetown

This was also a very easy choice for the coaches.  Marcinkowski played all but 18 minutes this season for the Hoyas, who ended up going undefeated in league play.  It's real hard for a field player to beat that one out, even if there was one that had a particularly great season, which there wasn't this year.

Coaching Staff of the Year: Georgetown

As mentioned above, the Hoyas went 9-0-0 in league play.  I would have gone with the guy who ran off 15 straight wins to start the season before losing two of his last three and spent most of the season ranked #1 in the country, but hey, what do I know.  If the ballots didn't have to get turned in until after the season finale on Thursday, then fine.  If you voted Georgetown BEFORE the Hoyas defeated Creighton, then you're just being a jackass.

Co-Goalkeeper of the Year: Connor Sparrow, Creighton & Dallas Jaye, Xavier

THIS.... THIS is disgusting.  But I need to show you the All-Big East teams first before I really tee off on this.

All-Big East First Team

Dallas Jaye, Xavier, R-Sr., GK
JT Marcinkowski, Georgetown, Fr., GK
Fabian Herbers, Creighton, Jr., F
Brandon Allen, Georgetown, Sr., F
Mac Steeves, Providence, Jr., F
Vincent Mitchell, Butler, Sr., M
Timo Pitter, Creighton, Sr., M
Sean Sheridan, Villanova, Sr., M
Arun Basuljevic, Georgetown, So., M
Joshua Yaro, Georgetown, Jr., D
Cory Brown, Xavier, So., D
Vincent Keller, Creighton, Sr., D

All-Big East Second Team

Connor Sparrow, Creighton, Sr., GK
Eric Dick, Butler, RS-So., GK
Alex Muyl, Georgetown, Jr., F
David Goldsmith, Butler, Jr., F
Simon Megally, DePaul, Jr., F
Louis Bennett II, Marquette, Jr., M
Julian Gressel, Providence, Jr., M
Caleb Postelwait, Butler, Sr., M
Joshua Turnley, Georgetown, Sr., M/D
Keegan Rosenberry, Georgetown, Sr., M/D
Cole Seiler, Georgetown, Sr., D

Ok.  Let me explain this one more time.  Dallas Jaye was Xavier's THIRD STRING KEEPER before the season started.  He didn't play in the first FIVE matches of the year, and wasn't head coach Andy Fleming's first choice after Vince Shaw clanked a game against Lipscomb.  The starting nod went to Jake Ciricillo, and after he clanked the next game against Virginia Tech, THEN Fleming went to Jaye.

Jaye then went 7-2-1 the rest of the season while allowing seven goals.  He didn't even manage to hold on to the starting gig for the rest of the season, as Fleming WENT BACK TO CIRICILLO after Jaye lost to Georgetown IN OVERTIME, and then Ciricillo promptly clanked a game against Providence.  For the record, Jaye had allowed TWO goals at this point, INCLUDING THE GOLDEN GOAL in a 1-0 loss.  Fleming then let Vince Shaw back into the net for the first time since Lipscomb on Senior Night, and then flipped back to Jaye after 15 minutes, so I'm not giving Jaye credit for that win.

The point of all of this is that Connor Sparrow played all but 15 minutes for Creighton this season, allowed five more goals in 6 more matches and almost 500 more minutes played, leads the Big East in shutouts with eight, only allowed more than one goal in a game three times this season and never allowed more than two, WHICH BY THE WAY, Jaye did in losing 3-0 to Butler with a #3 seed in the Big East tournament on the line in the regular season finale.  Oh, and Creighton was undefeated and ranked #1 in the country for most of the season.  Ok, fine, Xavier handed them their first loss.  WHIPPY DING.

So no, I have no idea how the hell Jaye and Sparrow are tied for Goalkeeper of the Year, making it two straight seasons where Sparrow has gotten completely hosed on this award by whoever the hell was manning the net for Xavier.  At least last year, Eric Osswald was Xavier's keeper for the entire season.

As if that wasn't insanely insulting already, I have no idea how you end up with an equal number of coaches writing "Sparrow" and "Jaye" on the GK OTY line, but then NOT putting Sparrow on their all-league team ballot.  How in the name of all that is holy do you have JT Marcinkowski sneaking into a tie with Jaye for first team honors?  I'm not saying he's not deserving of it as the keeper on a team that went 9-0-0 in league play..... well, no, I am saying exactly that, because Marcinkowski has actually given up one more goal than Sparrow in one fewer match played.  This is like how the men's hoops coaches voted Jalen Brunson as preseason Freshman of the Year, and then turned around and voted Henry Ellenson as the only freshmen on the preseason First or Second team.  It literally defies all logic.

Enough of all of that.  As far as the rest of the all-BE First Team goes, it's all exactly the guys I picked, except for Basuljevic and Brown, and that's because I picked their teammates, Muyl and Moore, for those spots.  That's, like, 75% correct, really.  Pat on the back for me.

Let's wrap up with the listing for the All-Freshmen team.

All-Freshman Team

Marco Charalambous, Butler, RS-Fr., M 
Brendan Constantine, Providence, Fr., M
JT Marcinkowski, Georgetown, Fr., GK 
Tiago Mendonca, Providence, Fr., M
Alex Pozesky, Seton Hall, Fr., M 
Mike Prosuk, St. John's, Fr., F 
Joel Rydstrand, Creighton, Fr., M 
Ruben Sanchez, Marquette, Fr., D
Jake Scheper, DePaul, Fr., M
Klisman Sousa, Providence, RS-Fr., M
Jared Timmer, Butler, Fr., M
Zach Zandi, Villanova, Fr., M