Nov. 20, 2008

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- One day after being named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Men's Soccer Team, Northern Illinois' Kyle Knotek was named the MAC Male Scholar Athlete of the Week, Thursday.

Knotek (Geneva, Ill./Geneva), who holds a perfect 4.0 grade point average in business administration, was a key part of the Northern Illinois defense that allowed just one goal in 294:52 minutes of the Mid-American Conference Tournament. With Knotek on the backline, the Huskies shut out Bowling Green, 2-0, in the quarterfinal. In the semifinal, Knotek's defense helped NIU hold Buffalo scoreless in a 1-0 win. Knotek played every minute of the championship match, in which the Huskies held the fourth-ranked team in the nation, Akron, scoreless for 105 minutes.

Knotek is the fourth Huskie to earn MAC Scholar Athlete of the Week accolades this season. Other winners from NIU include redshirt freshman Chandler Harnish (Bluffton, Ind./Norwell) and senior Jon Brost (Maple Grove, MN/Maple Grove) of the football team, and Javier Bernabe (Segovia, Spain/IES Mariano Quintanilla) of the men's tennis squad.

The junior is the third men's soccer player to be awarded Scholar Athlete of the Week. A pair of goalkeepers have also won the award. Joe Zimka (Algonquin, Ill./Jacobs) picked it up in 2006, and Steve Goletz (Downers Grove, Ill./South) took home the honor in 2005.

The MAC Scholar Athlete of the Week honor is presented to one male and one female student-athlete from a Mid-American Conference school who has a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better and performs well during that week's competition. The winners are selected by a group of the conference's faculty athletic representatives.