PHILADELPHIA – Senior Andrew Sturner has been named the 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly-SIDA Academic All-Area Men's Cross Country Team's Performer of the Year and is joined on the squad by senior teammate Eric Arnold. In addition to the cross country duo, Haverford College placed three more of its fall sport student-athletes onto all-area teams: field hockey junior Mary Hobbs, senior men's soccer player Alejandro Rettig y Martinez and senior Emily Lipman of the women's cross country team.
The all-area team is voted on by the sports information offices of the 28 institutions from within the Philadelphia metropolitan area which compose the Philadelphia Area Sports Information Directors Association (Philly-SIDA).
Sturner and Arnold earn academic all-area cross country honors for the first time in their careers after earning inclusion on the Centennial Conference academic honor roll three times each. The pair also represent the only institution to have more than one runner on the 2011 seven-man all-area squad.
Sturner ran to All-America status with a 31st-place finish at the 2011 NCAA Divsion III championship meet. In addition to his academic all-area honor, Sturner's postseason includes earning first-team all-conference and All-Mideast region honors. He placed 10th at the region meet and fifth in the Centennial championship race.
Arnold was also a first-team all-Centennial and All-Mideast region performer. He was the individual runner-up at the region meet by less than a stride and finished fourth overall in the conference race before closing out the season with a 43rd-place finish at the NCAA championship meet.
The senior duo helped Haverford to team titles at the conference and region meets, and to a runner-up finish at the national meet.
Voted a second-team 2011 Longstreth/National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Division III All-South Region player and second-team all-Centennial Conference performer already this postseason, Hobbs has also earned inclusion on the Centennial Academic Honor Roll for the second time in her career.
Hobbs ranked 16th among NCAA Division III players this season with a 1.11 goals per game mark and was 17th nationally in points per game (2.63). She led the team with 50 points from 21 goals and eight assists and tied for the team lead in game-winning goals with three, including the go-ahead goal after scoring the equalizer in a 3-2 conference tournament semifinal win over Washington College.
In early-October Hobbs was selected as the conference's offensive player of the week following a 7-0 victory over Gettysburg College during which she scored four goals and added a pair of assists for a 10-point outing, a program single-game record.
One other Centennial player, Alyssa Thren of Ursinus College, joins Hobbs on the all-area field hockey team. The performer of the year is Brynn Adams, the 2011 Longstreth/NFHCA D-II National Player of the Year, from national champion West Chester University.
Rettig y Martinez, named to the all-Centennial Conference second team and Centennial academic honor roll (third time in career) already this postseason, picks up his first academic all-area nod.
During a season which culminated with a shootout loss in the conference tournament final in the team's first trip to the Centennial playoffs, Rettig y Martinez led the offensive attack with eight goals. His final score came in the conference semifinal game, netting the first goal in a 2-1 upset win over top-seed and host Johns Hopkins University.
Within league statistics he was second in goals per game (0.44) and tied for fourth-best in game-winning goals with three on the season. Rettig y Martinez was selected twice as the Centennial's offensive player of the week (Oct. 10 and No. 1).
David D'Annunzio and Micah Rose of Swarthmore join Rettig y Martinez as representatives from the Centennial on the 11-player team. Thomas Brandt of Penn and Tim VanLiew of Rutgers-Camden are the co-performers of the year for the all-area team.
Lipman earns academic all-area honors for the first time in her career after earning inclusion on the Centennial Conference academic honor roll three times.
In her final cross country season for the Fords, Lipman was the first Haverford runner across the finish line in all three postseason races earning first-team all-conference and all-Mideast Region honors along the way. She narrowly missed capturing the individual conference crown crossing the finish 1.3 seconds behind the winner, then brought home a seventh-place finish at the region meet and 53rd-place finish at the NCAA Division III championship race in the following weeks.
Lipman was the lone Centennial representative on the seven-runner all-area team. The 2011 performer of the year is Villanova University's Sheila Reid, a two-time NCAA D-I individual national champion (2010, 2011).
2011 Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly-SIDA
Academic All-Area Men's Cross Country Team
2011 Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly-SIDA Academic
All-Area Field Hockey Team
2011 Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly-SIDA Academic
All-Area Men's Soccer Team
2011 Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly-SIDA Academic
All-Area Women's Cross Country Team