KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced its 2021 All-America Teams on Wednesday night as four Mid-America Christian men's soccer players were recognized on the esteemed list.
For the first time in program history, the Evangels had two players earn spots on the team as senior midfielder Mateus Pasquantonio was selected to the Second Team, senior forward Rodrigo Albuquerque garnered Third Team honors and both senior defender Dejue Johnson and freshman goalkeeper Jeremi Abonnel were tabbed to the Honorable Mention list.
Previously, MACU only had players receive Honorable Mention acclaim with Albuquerque and Johnson earning it in 2020, Djibril Fofana in 2018 and Dominik Tajak in 2017.
In his lone season of competition with the Evangels, Pasquantonio wreaked havoc from the center-mid position. While recording just two goals and an assist, the Sao Paolo, Brazil product made a heavy impact with his tremendous ball-handling passing and defensive abilities as he was selected to the All-Sooner Athletic Conference First Team as a result.
In his third season with the program, Albuquerque shattered MACU men's soccer's offensive records. Leading the team with 15 goals and nine assists, the Recife, Brazil native holds all of MACU's career offensive numbers, including: goals (47), assists (23), points (117), shots (292), shots on-goal (146) and game-winning goals (19).
The SAC Player of the Year's 15-goal effort tied his own third-best single-season mark in the MACU record book while the nine assists rank as the fourth-most and the 39 points sits in third.
Earning Honorable Mention acclaim for the second straight year, Johnson was selected once again after spearheading a defensive backfield that conceded 1.03 goals per game on 7.9 shots and 3.1 shots on-goal, which placed him as the SAC's Defensive Player of the Year for the third straight season.
The defender from Linstead, Jamaica also closed out his MACU career with two assists, the most notched in a single season in his three-year stint with the program.
Rounding out the honorees, Abonnel became the first MACU goalkeeper to ever be recognized by the NAIA. Starting in all 21 matches, the Aix-en-Provence, France native finished the year with the second-most single season wins (19) and the fifth-lowest goals allowed average (1.04) in program history, allowing him to receive the honor of the SAC Goalkeeper of the Year.
Overall, Mid-America Christian ended the season with the winningest season in the history of the program, going 19-1-1 (.929) and becoming the first program at MACU to win both its regular season title at 8-0-1 and tournament title with a 2-0 victory over Southwestern Christian on Nov. 11.
