Oct. 24, 2007

Bay City, Mich. - The GLIAC has announced that Grand Valley State University goalkeeper Kristina Nasturzio is the women's soccer Athlete of the Week for the week of Oct. 15-21. Nasturzio became the third different Laker to win the honor this year, joining Katy Tafler and Sue Christenson. National and regional polls for the week were also released, and GVSU remained the number one team in both polls.

Nasturzio was strong in two games this past week, one of which saw the Lakers go to overtime for this first time this season. She stopped four shots against Tiffin in 98:00 of action, allowing just one goal. She followed tha tup with a 90:00, three-save shutout of Northern Michigan on Sunday. The two wins over the week brought the Lakers record to 16-0 with a perfect 7-0 conference mark. Nasturzio ranks second in the nation in goals-against average (0.272) and third in the nation in save percentage (0.9).

The regional polls, which decide postseason matchups, have Grand Valley State on top of the Great Lakes region for the third consecutive week. The polls first started coming out three weeks ago, making the Lakers the only team to hold the top spot in the region. SIU-Edwardsville is second, followed by Quincy and Mercyhurst. Grand Valley defeated Mercyhurst 4-0 earlier in the season.

The NSCAA/Adidas national polls were released and GVSU was the top-ranked team in the nation for the eighth consecutive week. Number two is Seattle-Pacific, the only team other than Grand Valley that has won every match so far this season. GVSU has the top-ranked scoring offense in the nation (4.31). They are also ranked second in goals-against average, giving up just 0.373 goals per game. Finally, the team is ranked sixth in shutout percentage, shutting out their opponents in 62.5 percent of their matches. Tafler leads the team individually, ranking first in the nation in both points per game (4.5) and goals per game (1.938) and 17th in assists per game (0.63).