Bucknell University men’s soccer student-athlete Joe Meyer (Sykesville, Md./McDonogh/Bays Alumni) earned First Team Capital One Academic All-American honors on Tuesday. Meyer, who was a Third Team selection last season, becomes Bucknell’s first two-time national honoree in any sport since men’s soccer’s Jonathan Hemmert was chosen in 2003 and 2004.

 

LEWISBURG, Pa. – Bucknell men’s soccer student-athlete Joe Meyer (Sykesville, Md./McDonogh) earned First Team Capital One Academic All-America honors on Tuesday. Meyer, who was a Third Team selection last season, becomes Bucknell’s first two-time national honoree in any sport since men’s soccer’s Jonathan Hemmert was chosen in 2003 and 2004.

Meyer is one of 11 student-athletes named to the First Team, and he is Bucknell’s first First Team Academic All-American in any sport since football’s Tim Bolte in the fall of 2011. Meyer’s selection gives Bucknell 125 all-time Academic All-Americans, the fifth-highest total among all Division I institutions.

Nine of those 125 Bison Academic All-Americans have come from men’s soccer, as Meyer joins fellow two-time honorees Hemmert and Greg Beatty (1994, 1995), along with Ryan Weber (2001), Chris Hennings (2008) and Patrick Selwood (2009). The Bucknell men’s soccer program has had seven national Academic All-Americans and 21 Academic All-District selections in Brendan Nash’s 15-year tenure as head coach.

Earlier this fall, Meyer was named to the 11-man Patriot League All-Academic Team for men’s soccer for the second year in a row. Meyer is a mechanical engineering major with a 3.93 cumulative grade-point average, which is one of the highest of any Bison student-athlete.

On Nov. 2, Meyer hustled from Emmitt Field immediately after a 3-1 victory over Holy Cross to New York City, where he was presented with a Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) scholarship at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. He is also a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. This past summer, Meyer interned at K2M, Inc., in Leesburg, Va., where one of his tasks was to design a device to cut surgically implanted rails, which are used to maintain spinal alignment.

On the field, Meyer enjoyed a terrific senior season on the Bison back line, and he was rewarded with Second Team All-Patriot League honors. He played 1,830 of a possible 1,841 minutes at right back, fortifying a Bucknell defense that recorded 10 shutouts and a 0.73 team goals-against average. Meyer tallied a goal and two assists, with the goal coming in spectacular fashion in Bucknell’s 2-0 league win over Loyola.

Meyer was a four-year contributor at Bucknell, playing both outside midfield and fullback. He started every game as a junior and senior, and in his career he played in 76 of a possible 79 matches, with 56 starts.

Meyer was joined on the Academic All-America First Team by Marquette goalkeeper Charlie Lyon; defenders Nick Alers of Yale, Nick Marshall of Drake and Joe Sofia of UCLA; midfielders Laurie Bell of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Thomas McNamara of Clemson and Todd Vervynckt of Valparaiso; and forwards Andy Bevin of West Virginia, Tyler Riggs of Kentucky and Harrison Shipp of Notre Dame. Shipp was selected as the Men’s Soccer Academic All-America of the Year.

Bucknell finished 13-6-1 overall and 5-3-1 in the Patriot League in 2013. The Bison defeated American 3-1 in the Patriot League Tournament quarterfinals before falling to top-seeded and eventual champion Navy 1-0 in the semifinal round. The 13 victories were tied for second-most in program history.