OKLAHOMA CITY – In his first season with the MACU Men's Soccer program, head coach Aaron Hoxie was selected as the Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, Claudio Fuentealba garnered SAC Goalkeeper of the Year, Oscar Gallardo grabbed SAC Defensive Player of the Year and the Evangels as a whole had seven selected to the All-SAC Team.
Joining Gallardo and Fuentealba on the First Team were senior midfielder Enzo Nogue, senior defender Sebastian Rebolledo and junior defender Lucas Catosso while junior forward Tony Ngombi and sophomore forward Federico Palacios were tabbed to the Second Team.
Coming to MACU after a 12-year tenure at fellow SAC member Central Christian, Hoxie inherited a program that lost several players from last year's championship squad to graduation and the transfer portal and had many newcomers enter the program. With many fresh faces to the program, the highly-experienced coach was able to lead MACU to its fourth consecutive conference regular season championship, wrapping up SAC play with a 7-0-2 league record and 12-1-4 mark heading into SAC Tournament play.
A program that will enter NAIA Tournament postseason play with the seventh-lowest goals allowed average in the nation (0.70), Gallardo and Fuentealba have been enormous reasons for MACU's defensive success.
Being named MACU's sixth consecutive SAC Defensive Player of the Year, Gallardo has been massive piece of backrow defensive efforts in the center-back position. The senior from Malaga, Spain has logged the most non-goalkeeper minutes (1283) while the defense managed to hold its opposition to 7.3 shots with only 2.8 shots landing on-frame per game.
Earning the Goalkeeper of the Year honor for the second year in a row, Fuentealba has amassed a 12-2-3 record in-goal with a stellar 0.66 goals allowed average, making 34 saves for a .756 save percentage and notching six shutouts with three combined shutouts.
Currently, the Rancagua, Chile native's season goals allowed average ranks as the second-lowest in MACU's single season record book while his 12 wins and six shutouts rank fifth on the season lists. In his two years at MACU, Fuentealba is one of MACU's best keepers in program history as he currently owns the program's lowest career goals allowed average (0.72) and save percentage (.764), ranks second in career shutouts (13), third in career wins (27) and fifth in career saves (81).
In his second year with the Evangels, Nogue as the senior captain led the MACU offensive attack, netting nine goals and dishing out five assists for 23 points. The Pignan, France product was incredibly accurate on his offensive shooting attempts, scoring on 42.9 percent of his shots and placing 71.4 percent of his attempts on-goal, which currently rank as the highest shooting percentage and the third-highest shot-on-goal percentage in a single season in program history.
On-top of his incredible offensive efficiency, the Team Captain currently also holds the program single-season record for penalty kick goals with five while going a perfect 5-for-5 so far on his attempts.
Another one of MACU's Team Captains, Catosso has been an instrumental part of MACU's shut down defense while also contributing to the offensive attack, netting a pair of goals and dishing out a pair of assists. The field general from Sao Paulo, Brazil has also seen some of the most action on the field for MACU as he has logged the third-most non-goalkeeper minutes (1229) over 19 games.
Rounding out the First Team honorees, Rebolledo has continued to play an integral role out of his right center-back position. Despite missing some games due to injury, the Cali, Colombia product has logged the fourth-most minutes on the team (1209) over 16 games. Over the course of his two seasons at MACU, Rebolledo has been a mainstay, appearing in 37 games, making 34 starts and logging 2696 minutes.
Another player in his second year in the program, Palacios has made tremendous strides of improvement from his first year to his sophomore campaign. After netting just one goal and dishing out five assists last season, the Oklahoma City native is the squad's second-leading goal scorer with five goals while dishing out three assists for 13 points, nearly doubling his scoring output from a year ago.
In his first year with the Evangels, Ngombi has been one of the biggest catalysts in the attack from his right wing position. With a team-leading seven assists on the year, the Clermont Ferrand, France forward needs just one more dime to break into a tie for the sixth-most single season assists in MACU's record book.
With the No. 9 ranking in the NAIA with a 14-3-4 overall record, the Evangels will now await to see who it will face in NAIA National Tournament competition. The NAIA Tournament Selection show is slated to air at 1 p.m. on Saturday on the NAIA's YouTube channel.
