Harrison Shipp

Three Irish Soccer Players Named Academic All-Americans

Nov. 26, 2013

Men’s & Women’s Soccer 2013 Academic All-America TeamsGet Acrobat Reader

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NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Three University of Notre Dame soccer standouts have earned the distinction of being named Capital One Academic All-Americans® for the 2013 campaign as chosen by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Elizabeth Tucker (Sr./D) from the Fighting Irish women’s team along with men’s players Harrison Shipp (Sr./F) and Patrick Hodan (So./M) were honored for their success on the field and in the classroom.

In addition to being selected to the Academic All-America First Team, Shipp was tapped as the Capital One Academic All-America of the Year® for Division I men’s soccer. He is the first Notre Dame men’s soccer player to earn that accolade and just the seventh in University history (see full list at the bottom of this release). The last Fighting Irish student-athlete to receive that honor was women’s soccer player Vanessa Pruzinsky in 2003.

Shipp (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) has compiled a stellar four-year career at Notre Dame and currently is enjoying his best season ever. Earlier this month he was named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Offensive Player of the Year after helping the Irish capture a share of the league’s regular-season title. Shipp leads the Irish in goals (11) and assists (8) this season and on Sunday he scored two goals in Notre Dame’s 4-0 victory over Wisconsin in the second round of the NCAA Championship. The two tallies matched a program record for goals scored in an NCAA tournament contest. He will take a six-game point streak into Sunday’s round-of-16 match against Wake Forest. Shipp had a career-best seven-match point streak earlier this season.

Shipp, a team captain, has never missed a match during his collegiate career and has recorded 22 goals and 22 assists in 80 games. Last season, he was named to the Academic All-America Second Team and now has the distinction of being the first two-time Academic All-American in program history. He was a third team all-BIG EAST pick last season and was on the BIG EAST Academic All-Star Team three times.

The forward boasts a 3.883 cumulative GPA as a finance major in Notre Dame’s top-ranked Mendoza College of Business. Shipp, who also is a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award, has been named to the dean’s list each of the last five semesters.

Patrick Hodan

Hodan (Brookfield, Wis./Marquette University High School) was voted on to the Academic All-America Third Team. The sophomore midfielder joined Shipp in the scoring column of Sunday’s triumph of the Badgers as he netted his seventh goal of the season. Despite missing two matches with an injury, he still is second behind Shipp in goals, assists (5) and points (19) on the Fighting Irish squad, which will take a 13-1-6 (7-1-3 ACC) mark into Sunday’s clash with the Demon Deacons. Hodan, an all-ACC second team selection, has found the back of the net in each of the last three games, a career-best streak.

Hodan has appeared in 40 matches during his first two seasons with the Fighting Irish and has registered 13 goals and 10 assists. Along with posting a solid rookie campaign on the field with six goals and five assists, he was on the dean’s list both semesters of his freshman year. Hodan earned BIG EAST all-rookie honors and a BIG EAST Academic All-Star nod last season and carries a 3.917 cumulative GPA in the Mendoza College of Business. He is the ninth Academic All-American in program history and the first sophomore to earn that honor.

Notre Dame is the only men’s program to have multiple players among the 33 Academic All-Americans for the 2013 campaign. Of the final 16 squads remaining in the NCAA Championship, only Notre Dame, Marquette and UCLA have an Academic All-American on its roster. Notre Dame is one of just six schools with 2013 Academic All-Americans in both men’s and women’s soccer.

Elizabeth Tucker

For the second consecutive year, Notre Dame women’s soccer senior defender/tri-captain Elizabeth Tucker (Jacksonville, Fla./Bishop Kenny) has been named to the Capital One Academic All-America® First Team.

Tucker becomes the 16th two-time first-team Academic All-American in Notre Dame athletics history, as well as the fourth Fighting Irish women’s soccer player to do so, along with three-time choice Pruzinsky (2000-01, 2003) and two-time selections Erika Bohn (2004-05) and Ashley Jones (2006-07). The Notre Dame women’s soccer program now has produced 26 Academic All-Americans in its history (a national-best 18 since women’s soccer was separated from the at-large Academic All-America program in 2002).

As a team tri-captain for the second consecutive year, Tucker helped lead a young Notre Dame squad with 18 underclassmen to a 13-8-1 record (7-5-1 in the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference) and a spot in the third round of the NCAA Championship. Individually, Tucker started all 22 matches for the Fighting Irish this season (ranking fourth on the team among field players with 1,830 minutes played), collecting four goals (tied for fourth on the team) and three assists in her first year as a starter at left back, a position she had never played in her career prior to 2013. Tucker also registered her fifth career two-goal match on Oct. 10 at top-ranked Virginia, and delivered the assist on Notre Dame’s match-winning goal in its NCAA Championship second-round win over Western Michigan on Nov. 22.

A third-team all-BIG EAST and BIG EAST All-Rookie Team selection in 2010, Tucker appeared in all 92 of Notre Dame’s matches during her career, starting 87 times and finishing with 19 goals and 14 assists. She is enrolled in the Mendoza College of Business, where she is an accounting major and has a perfect 4.000 cumulative GPA, having earned dean’s list honors each semester she has attended the University. She also made the BIG EAST All-Academic Team in each of her first three years in South Bend.

Notre Dame ranks second all-time with 234 Academic All-Americans since the program’s inception in 1952. What’s more, 108 Fighting Irish student-athletes have earned the Academic All-America distinction during the past 15 years, third-most from any school in the country.

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICANS OF THE YEAR
Tim Ruddy — Academic All-American of the Year (Football – 1993)
Jen Renola — Acacemic All-American of the Year (F/W Women’s At-Large – 1997)
Pat Garrity — Academic All-American of the Year (Men’s Basketball – 1998)
Ruth Riley — University Division Academic All-American of the Year (2001)
Academic All-American of the Year (Women’s Basketball – 2001)
Jarrah Meyers — Academic All-American of the Year (Softball – 2002)
Vanessa Pruzinsky — Academic All-American of the Year (Women’s Soccer – 2003)
Harrison Shipp — Academic All-American of the Year (Men’s Soccer – 2013)

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