Columbia College forward Juan Pablo Irrera takes home
most valuable player honors

Columbia, Mo. – Juan Pablo Irrera, a junior forward for the Columbia College Cougars, has been named the American Midwest Conference (AMC) Player of the Year in men’s soccer in a recent vote by league coaches. Irrera totaled 16 goals and nine assists during the regular season, leading the Cougars to their second consecutive AMC title. He is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For the second straight year, the AMC Freshman of the Year is a member of the Columbia Cougar squad. Stephen McMullen, who hails from Coatbridge, Scotland, is the top rookie in the league. The midfielder played in all 19 Cougar outings in the regular season, totaling 11 goals and three assists.

The Newcomer of the Year honor is bestowed upon the top transfer student in the AMC, as voted on by league coaches. Peter Christofilakos, a senior forward from the University of Illinois at Springfield is the 2003 recipient of the award. Christofilakos, who is from Springfield, Ill., netted a league-high 20 goals in the regular season in addition to contributing four assists.

John Klein, head coach at Columbia College, is the AMC Coach of the Year, based on a vote by his AMC peers. Klein led the Cougars their third AMC regular season title in four years, finishing with a perfect league mark of 7-0 and an overall record of 14-5.

The Fair Play & Sportsmanship Award is annually presented to one AMC men’s soccer squad based on two areas of sportsmanship. First, teams are awarded points based on their total number of red and yellow cards accumulated throughout the regular season. Second, AMC coaches vote on the squads, ranking their level of sportsmanship during their respective contests. The 2003 recipient of the Fair Play Award is Columbia College.

A complete list of the 16-member first team, honorable mention squad and the academic all-conference team, is listed below. Members of the academic all-conference team have earned at least a 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.

Columbia College
Morton Crosby, Juan Pablo Irrera, Gustavo Lopez-Cesarego, Ryan Lynch, Matt Mueller, Ivan Navarrete, Juan Pagoada, Nano Recondo, Vladimir Roganovic, Steve Williams

Hannibal-LaGrange College
Ezra Collins, Sebastian Gonzalez, Matt Gordon, Josh Kerr, Patrick Kohm  

Harris-Stowe State College
Gonzalo Alonso, Brian DeMattais, Moustapha Fall, Godfrey Olewe, Agustin Villegas 

University of Illinois at Springfield
Andreas Barcenas, Jamie Doerfler, Daniel Flynn, Yones Kutlu, Mauricio Lora, Curt Miller, Marcus Rodriguez, Andy Simmons

McKendree College
Steve DeMoulin, Michael Dermen, Brian Ferguson, Ryan Jacob, Scott Kutscher, Tim Steeg, Rick Niedringhaus

Missouri Baptist University
Felipe Alvarez, David Barnett, Michael Keane, Josh Lydon

William Woods University
Matt Bruno, Kevin Julian, Antonio Povedo-Lopez, Ben N’Dolo Ngie, Brad Schmidt

Williams Baptist College
Ambex Bantu, Augusto Lopes, Ram Pandey, Bibesh Shrestha, Luke Wagoner

2003 Fair Play & Sportsmanship Award - Columbia College