Feb. 12, 2002
Two Notre Dame women’s soccer player s have been recognized as Academic All-Americans for the 2001-02 academic year, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America.
Junior defender Vanessa Pruzinsky (Trumbull, Conn.) – who impressively has maintained her 4.0 cumulative grade-point average as a chemical engineering major – repeated as a first team Academic All-American while fifth-year defender Monica Gonzalez (Richardson, Texas) became the 38th all-time student-athlete in Notre Dame history (see list below) to earn All-America and Academic All-America honors for the same season (she was a second team All-American and third team Academic All-American).
Pruzinsky joins former basketball star Bob Arnzen (1967 and ’68) as just the second student-athlete in Notre Dame’s storied Academic All-America history to be named a first team Academic All-American as both a sophomore and junior (freshmen are not eligible). Arnzen closed out his career by making the first team for a third time in 1969.
Notre Dame was one of just six schools that placed multiple players (each had two) on the 33-member Academic All-America teams (11 on each team), with Notre Dame and Nebraska being the only schools from that group that were ranked in the national top 25 (the others: Seton Hall, Navy, Alabama-Birmingham and Oakland).
Gonzalez is the fourth Notre Dame women’s student-athlete to recently complete the unique All-America and Academic All-America distinction, with softball players Jarrah Myers and Jen Sharron and women’s basketball standout Ruth Riley doing so in the spring of 2001 (Riley also pulled down the double honors in 2000). Gonzalez joins former goalkeeper Jen Renola (’95 and ’96) as Notre Dame’s second women’s soccer player to receive both honors in the same season (Renola is one of just seven ND student-athletes from all sports to do so in multiple seasons).
Notre Dame women’s soccer players have combined for 10 Academic All-America honors during the past eight seasons, with the pervious seven years of the awards coming under the fall/winter “at-large” program (in which the women’s soccer players were on a larger ballot with athletes from other sports). Renola and forward Amy Van Laecke earned 2nd-team honors following their junior season (1995) and were 1st-team selections as seniors, with Renola named the Academic All-American of the Year. Jenny Streiffer then earned 1st-team honors (as a sophomore) after the 1997 season and was a 2nd-team pick as a junior while another Irish forward, Meotis Erikson, was a 3rd-team selection for the 2000 season.
Pruzinsky was one of five players with 4.0 GPAs that were named to the 2001-02 Academic All-America squad, including fellow first teamers Katharina Lindner (Hartford) and Liza Nowoslawski (UAB).
A two-time second team NSCAA all-region selection, Pruzinsky also earned first team all-BIG EAST Conference honors in 2001 and was a finalist for the Missouri Athletic Club National Player-of-the-Year Award. She has started 71 of 72 games during her ND career and registered her first goal at Notre Dame in the 2-1 loss at Rutgers before scoring again in the NCAA loss to Cincinnati.
Gonzalez – who was the 11th overall selection in Monday’s player draft for the Women’s United Soccer Association – capper her career with NSCAA second team All-America honors before posting a 3.62 semester GPA (her fifth Dean’s List semester) and graduating with a 3.39 cumulative GPA, as a double major in management information systems and Spanish. A founding member of Mexico’s women’s national team, Gonzalez joined Pruzinsky as a central defender in 2001, when she started all 21 games while scoring once and adding two assists. She totaled 17 goals and 17 assists in 95 career games played, with 49 starts.
Gonzalez and Pruzinsky combined with freshman Candace Chapman as just the second trio of Notre Dame defenders to be named NSCAA all-region in the same season (they also earlier became the first three defenders from the same team to be named first team all-BIG EAST). The 2001 Irish defense allowed just 18 goals in 21 games, including nine shutouts and eight others games with one goal allowed.
Click on PDF link for complete listing of the Academic All-America teams. List of Notre Dame’s all-time All-America/Academic All-America combo’s follows below:
Notre Dame’s All-Americans and Academic All-Americans from same academic year
Done 45 times by 38 individuals (twice by Gatewood, Arnzen, Paxson, Marten, Lester, Renola and Riley) … most in one year – four in 1995-96 (Marten, deBruin, Lester, Renola), also three in ’97, ’99 and ’01
Football (16, year refers to fall season)
Dan Shannon – 1954
Don Schaefer – 1955
Bob Lehmann – 1963
Jim Lynch – 1966
Tom Regner – 1966
Jim Smithberger – 1967
George Kunz – 1968
Jim Reilly – 1969
Tom Gatewood – 1970, ’71
Joe Theismann – 1970
Greg Marx – 1972
Dave Casper – 1973
Pete Demmerle – 1974
Ken MacAfee – 1977
John Krimm – 1981
Tim Ruddy – 1993
Men’s Track and Field (5)
Mike McWilliams – 1995
Jeff Hojnacki – 1997
Jason Rexing – 1997
Errol Williams – 1998
Mike Brown – 1998
Men’s Basketball (4)
Bob Arnzen – 1967, ’68
Kelly Tripucka – 1979
John Paxson – 1982, ’83
Pat Garrity – 1998
Softball (3)
Katie Marten – 1995, ’96
Jarrah Myers – 2001
Jen Sharron – 2001
Women’s Fencing (2)
Heidi Piper – 1991, ’92
Claudette deBruin – 1996
Women’s Soccer (2)
Jen Renola (women’s soccer) – 1995 season, ’96 season
Monica Gonzalez (women’s soccer) – 2001 season
Each with one (6)
Dan Peltier (baseball) – 1989
Andy Zurcher (men’s tennis) – 1994
Bill Lester (men’s fencing) – 1996, ’97
Jen Hall (women’s tennis) – 1999
Alison Klemmer (women’s track) – 1999
Ruth Riley (women’s basketball) – 2000, ’01