Biola UniversityBoth of Biola’s soccer programs are in the thick of the Golden State Athletic Conference playoff races heading into the final weekend of regular season play. That is a lot of pressure on these student-athletes, but the pressure has not taken a toll on the three Eagles who were named Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-District winners on Thursday.
Stephen Tanquary represents men’s soccer and Miranda Starbeck and Shea Davis represent women’s soccer on the college division district four list of winners and now are eligible to become Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-Americans in late-November.
Tanquary is a junior business administration major who leads men’s soccer in goals scored. Starbeck is a senior sociology major who recently netted an overtime game-winner on her senior day and Davis is a senior psychology major who’s started 10 of Biola’s 15 games on defense in 2014.
This is the first academic all-district honor for each of these three players. The men and women’s soccer programs had four representatives on this team one year ago and all graduated. Tanquary becomes the first junior from the soccer program to earn the award since Scott Hayes in 2012.
In order to be named to the Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-District team student-athletes must be a sophomore or higher and maintain a cumulative grade point average above 3.3. The athletes are first nominated by the institution they play for and then voted upon by the members of CoSIDA.
There are 13 total student-athletes on the women’s district four team and 11 total members on the men’s side. Of those 24 student-athletes, four come from the GSAC. The only other athlete from the GSAC to make the list is Christine Noel Adams, a senior forward from Westmont.
A round of voting takes place to whittle down the all-district lists to find the Academic All-American teams. All four of Biola soccer’s academic all-district athletes from 2013 went on to become academic all-americans.
