KJCCC Men's Soccer Athlete of the Week, Wk. 9

KJCCC Men's Soccer Athlete of the Week, Wk. 9

Pratt sophomore forward Francesco D'Aurelio guided his team to an undefeated week. The Italian native assisted on a game-winning score for his team while facing off with McPherson College Junior Varsity. D'Aurelio finished out the week by posting a hat trick and then some. While against Hesston College, D'Aurelio had a foot in all four goals that were scored. Three of his goals came in just the first half. Every strike that was taken by the sophomore resulted in a score. 

Cloud County sophomore goalkeeper Charles Albuquerque closed out the 2018 regular season with a pair of shutout performances last week, highlighted by a seven-save performance on the road against No. 4 Barton. Albuquerque improved to 12-3-1 in net this season and finished the regular season second in the KJCCC in save percentage (.839), third in total saves (83) and third in goals against average (1.00). 

Felipe Baeza and the Barton defensive line played a huge part in clinching the Cougars' first Jayhawk West title since 2013.  In Wednesday's battle of West powers, Baeza turned back seven Cloud County attacks including a pair of horizontal stops and a rejection of a 1v1 situation with seventeen minutes remaining to keep the sheet clean.  Although recording just one save on Saturday, the performance was superb despite just missing the block on a late first half penalty kick as the freshman from Chile kept the score tied late in the contest with a horizontal rejection.  Anchoring one of the nation's top five defenses, Baeza is now 11-0-1 since taking over in net protection duties allowing just two other goals in the twelve games.