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Cedarville Magazine
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Ziegler Wins National Soccer Award
The National Christian College Athletic
Association (NCCAA) honored Jacoby
Ziegler ’16 of Cedarville University as the
2015 Michelle Akers Award winner.
Ziegler was honored at the 2015NCCAA
Division I Women’s Soccer Championship
Kick-Of f Dinner in
November. The award
is named for Michelle
Ak e r s , t h e f o rme r
Women’s National Team
player who led the U.S.
to World Cup victories
in 1991 and 1999 and an
Olympic gold medal in
1996.
No one has scored
more goals in Cedarville University
women’s soccer history than Ziegler.
While recognized as one of the best players
the Lady Jackets have ever had, she also
demonstrates Christlike humility and never
views herself as better or more important
than her teammates.
These qualities, magnified even more so
off the field, are just some of the reasons why
Ziegler is the 2015 recipient of the NCCAA’s
Michelle Akers Award.
A native of Wellington, Ohio, the
5-foot-2-inch forward is a Dean’s Honor
List student as a nursing major. She
became Cedarville’s first female College
Sports Information Directors of America
(CoSIDA) Academic All-America First
Team selection in any
sport in 2013. She was
named to the Academic
All-America Second
Team this fall.
Ziegler has been a
regular on the NCCAA
Scholar-Athlete list. She
has twice been named to
the CoSIDA Academic
A l l -D i s t r i c t Te am,
the Great Midwest Athletic Conference
(G-MAC) Academic Team, and the
Academic All-Ohio unit.
On the field, Ziegler tallied 59 goals
to rank No. 1 on the school’s all-time list.
Coupled with 21 assists, her 139 total points
is second among career leaders.
The 2015 season was extra special for
Ziegler. She tallied 19 goals and eight assists
for 46 points to rank seventh nationally in
NCAA Division II in both goals and points.
Ziegler guided the Lady Jackets to a
record of 13-5-4 and their first G-MAC
Championship. That was significant in that
Cedarville earned the league’s first-ever
automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Jackets went 45-30-7 during
Ziegler’s career. She earned multiple
postseason honors, highlighted by being a
two-time G-MAC Offensive Player of the
Year, Daktronics NCAA Division II All-
American, and G-MAC Female Athlete of
the Year.
Ziegler’s Christian character is just as
noteworthy, providing a solid testimony
of her walk with Christ. She spent three
summers serving with On Goal soccer
ministry, traveled on a team missions trip
to Costa Rica, ran youth clinics at two local
churches the past four years, and has been a
discipleship leader.
Head Coach John McGillivray ’70
remarked, “Jacoby is always looking for ways
to serve others, whether it’s working child
care at her church, helping do yard work for
her elderly neighbors, or being Christ to the
people she comes in contact with through
her nursing rotations. She shares the love of
God with others on a day-to-day basis.”
A Soccer Player’s Prayer: Blog Excerpt
Inspired by a few teammates
on the importance of prayer,
I decided to send out an
email to a small group of us
to partner withme in praying
for our team in the summer and throughout
the upcoming season. To sum it up, I wanted
one thing: for our team to look like Jesus so
that when people looked at us, we could
point their eyes and hearts to Him.
Personally, the season turned out to be
more of a fight than I had expected. I missed
more than two-thirds of it due to various
injuries, a consequence of the hardware
put in my leg the year before. I’d like to say
I remained focused on my prayers for the
team and went through the season as holy
as a slice of Swiss cheese, but boy did I fail.
Week after week, my injury prolonged, and
every Monday I fell apart after having my
hope of playing that week crushed yet again.
I knew that I should be joyful, that
soccer really was just soccer and that
my hope, value, and purpose were in
the relentless love of Jesus. Yet, there’s a
difference between knowing and doing. It
was at that point, sitting alone in a park, that
I realized it didn’t matter how many times I
told myself what I knew, the only way I was
going to face my situation well was by the
grace of God alone.
To see the full story of how God answered
the prayers of women’s soccer midfielder
Susanna Mathew ’16, visit her blog at
cedarville.edu/soccerprayer .