ATLANTA—Freshman Hayden Binfield earned Southern Athletic Association defensive player of the year and newcomer of the year, Head Coach Jon Akin earned SAA coach of the year, and the entire Oglethorpe men's soccer starting 11 made the all-conference team, as announced Tuesday by the league office.
Ian Farquhar joined Binfield on the All-SAA first team. James Williams, Lucho Solorzano, Carlos Cavallaro and Josh Labus made the All-Conference second team. Matthews Braga, Fernando Guevara, Ethan Harrison, Javier Martinez and Stephen Summerow made All-Conference honorable mention.
This group led Oglethorpe to another outstanding season which saw the Stormy Petrels go undefeated during the conference regular season. After a challenging nonconference slate that featured several teams in the national top-10, Oglethorpe breezed through the regular season with six wins and one draw in seven games. The dominating stretch then continued into the conference tournament where the Petrels advanced to the championship final but saw their season end there.
Binfield's effort on the defensive end was unmatched. He helped the Petrels post five shutouts in the second half of the season and never allowed an opposing team to score more than one goal in a game until the tournament championship. This helped Oglethorpe maintain a 0.7 goal against average in the last 10 games of the season.
Binfield even helped some on the offensive end with three goals, including two game winners.
Farquhar, another All-SAA first team pick for Oglethorpe, led the team with five goals on the season, and many came in the conference tournament during a crucial stretch. He scored a pair against Millsaps in the quarterfinal before rocketing a golden goal in the second overtime against Birmingham Southern to advance Oglethorpe to the final.
Guevara provided Oglethorpe with a third-best four goals on the season alongside a team-best seven assists. This totaled 15 points which ranked tops on the team by five points.
Oglethorpe had 12 goal scorers on the season, with five scoring three goals. The list scoring three included Binfield and Braga.
