Briana Silvestri (Arizona State/Terra Linda, Calif.) and Paul King (Fairleigh Dickinson/New Castle, England) have earned NSCAA National Player of the Week honors for Sept. 17.

Silvestri shut out a pair of Big 12 teams, including No. 7 Texas, and has allowed only one goal in four games this season. King helped rally FDU from a three-goal deficit to a win over Manhattan and had four goals during the weekend.

Each week, a male and female player will be selected by a committee from a nomination pool comprised of players of the week from each NCAA Division I soccer conference. The players will be announced each Wednesday afternoon from now until Nov. 10 through NSCAA.com, the official website of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

They also will be recognized at halftime of the NSCAA College Game of the Week on Fox Soccer Channel, a schedule of 20 men’s and women’s intercollegiate matches. This week the women’s schedule continues with No. 17 Penn State facing James Madison in a 8 p.m. ET match-up in Harrisonburg, Va., on Thursday, Sept. 18. The following evening No. 12 Creighton heads to Stanford for an 11 p.m. ET men’s start.

Briana Silvestri
GK, Jr., Arizona State, Terra Linda, Calif.
Silvestri, a native of Terra Linda, Calif., helped extend the Sun Devils’ unbeaten streak to three after shutting out both Baylor and the seventh-ranked Texas Longhorns on the road. After posting clean sheets against Baylor and a Texas team that came into the match averaging 2.6 goals per game, Silvestri now ranks fourth on ASU’s all-time shutouts list with nine. Since missing the first three games of the season because of injury, she has tallied 12 saves and only allowed one goal in four games. She is currently ranked seventh in the nation with a .237 goals against average.

Paul King
M, Fr., Fairleigh Dickinson, New Castle, England
King becomes the first conference player in two years to claim both NEC Player and Rookie of the Week honors after scoring four of Fairleigh Dickinson’s nine goals in the team’s 2-1 week. King helped spark an improbable comeback at Manhattan on Monday as the Knights rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the last 15 minutes to defeat the Jaspers in overtime, 5-4.  He helped turn the momentum in FDU’s favor with a goal in the 76th minute to make it 4-2.  After the Knights scored twice in a 13-second span in the 83rd minute to tie it up, it was King who pushed across the game-winner six minutes into the extra session, taking a feed from Jermaine Hardy and placing the ball in the right corner of the net. Holding a 1-0 lead over Yale on Sunday, King gave the Knights some breathing room in the 77th minute, converting Fernando Huthmacher’s cross, then tacked on an insurance goal off an assist from Sergio Munoz with less than five minutes left on the clock.  King, who leads the NEC with five goals and 10 points, picked up his second award of the season.

This Year’s Recipients
Sept. 3: Women – Jenae Gibbens, Cal State Fullerton; Men – Baggio Husidic, UIC.
Sept. 10: Women – Lindsay Taylor, Stanford; Men – Sam Petrone, Seton Hall.

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