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Skyhawk to be A Face in the Crowd
Fort Lewis College women’s soccer player Hayley Hollenga will be among this week’s “Faces in the Crowd,” a popular feature listing top amateur athletes in “Sports Illustrated.”
Women’s soccer coach Damian Clarke said the award is special “considering how hard Hayley has worked at athletics, being a former two-sport college athlete in basketball as well as soccer, coming back from a broken leg in 2008, and getting her team off to such a great start.
“This kid has the true mindset of a champion and the composure to win games,” he added. “Hayley scores goals for fun.”
Hollenga, a 5-foot-8 junior from Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, was honored for scoring four game-winning goals in a five-game span — including “golden goals” that ended three overtime contests.
Hollenga netted game-winning goals in FLC’s 1-0 double-overtime win against Augustana on Sept. 5, in a 1-0 win at then-No. 4 West Texas on Sept. 10, in a 2-1 double-overtime victory over Eastern N.M. on Sept. 12, and in an overtime win at Nebraska-Kearney on Sept. 19.
The day after her most recent overtime heroics, Fort Lewis College Assistant Director of Athletics for External Operations and Communications Chris Aaland nominated her for the honor on the “Sports Illustrated” website. Then the waiting began.
“Sports Illustrated” notified Aaland on Monday that Hollenga had been chosen. Aaland notified Skyhawk athletic administrators, the women’s soccer coaching staff and Hollenga herself.
Hollenga appears in the online version of “Sports Illustrated” available to subscribers. The issue that features Hollenga hits newsstands on Thursday.
Hollenga is the first Fort Lewis College student-athlete to receive the honor, although former cyclist Todd Wells appeared as an Old Spice Athlete of the Month in “Sports Illustrated” back in the 1990s.
Already one of the most decorated women’s soccer players in the history of the program, Hollenga was a Preseason All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selection this fall and won RMAC Offensive Player of the Week honors on Sept. 14. She comes off a season in which she scored a career-high 10 goals and earned third team All-RMAC and All-Central Region accolades. She was also a RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll performer and was named to the All-RMAC Tournament Team as a sophomore. As a true freshman in 2007, she earned second team All-Midwest Region honors.
As a basketball player at Fort Lewis College, she was a reserve guard on the Skyhawk team that finished second in the NCAA Division II women’s basketball playoffs last March. During her stint on the Skyhawk basketball team, FLC won three consecutive RMAC regular season and West Division titles and advanced to March Madness three times.
Hollenga is solely focusing on soccer now, and the Skyhawks are reaping the benefits. FLC is ranked No. 8 in the latest NSCAA Division II poll, released yesterday. The Skyhawks are 8-1-0 overall, 4-1-0 and in first place in the RMAC.
Fort Lewis continues its six-game homestand against New Mexico Highlands (4-3-1, 2-1-1) at 1 p.m. Friday.
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