HAVERFORD, Pa. – Senior co-captain Michael Iacono has been named the Centennial Conference Defensive Player of the Week after making five saves during a 1-0 win against Scranton last week. The honor is the second of Iacono's career after he won this same award last fall after posting back-to-back clean sheets against Ursinus and Dickinson during the 2018 season.
Iacono's five saves kept the Royals at bay just long enough for Paul-Andre Coulibaly to score the game-winning goal during the 73rd minute of play last Wednesday in non-conference action. That match was the only contest of the week for the Fords as the scheduled Centennial Conference clash with McDaniel was postponed until Wednesday, October 23.
Last year's first-team All-Centennial Conference goalkeeper, Iacono is the second Fords' keeper to earn defensive player of the week accolades this fall as first-year Dylan Ioffreda also won the award following the shutout of Johns Hopkins. Iacono has appeared in five of the team's matches, starting four of those contests. He is allowing just 0.54 goals against average per game and has stopped 84.6% of the shots that he has faced. The Fords are 5-3-3 on the year, including a 2-1-1 mark in CC action. Iacono has been the goalie of record in two of those victories.
In addition to this week's shutout, he has played in four of the team's five total shutouts. Iacono's save percentage and GAA would be the best marks in the Centennial Conference if he had logged at least 33% of the Fords' minutes to meet the conference minimum.
Over the course of his career, Iacono has started 23 of his 28 appearances in net and has recorded a 0.98 GAA. Haverford's goalkeepers have certainly made their marks on the school record books in recent memory as that sub-one GAA is the fourth best in program history and trails Iacono's former teammates Sam Miller '17 and Jeremy Astesano '18 by less than two-hundredths of a point for second all-time. Haverford is 14-5-2 with Iacono as the goalie of record over the past four seasons. He has posted seven solo shutouts during that time and split time in net during four other clean sheets for the defense.
Men's soccer will be on the road for a pair of matches this week before returning to Walton Field for three of the final four contests of the regular season. Haverford wraps up non-conference action this Tuesday at Drew with a 7 p.m. start under the lights. The Fords will jump back into Centennial Conference play this Saturday with a 4 p.m. match at Washington College.