NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – The Merrimack College athletic department left one last mark on the Northeast-10 Conference by means of a league-high three NE10 Sports Excellence Award winners for the 2019 spring season, which were announced by the conference office Tuesday afternoon.
Of the 98 student-athletes that were named to Academic All-Conference Teams last week, 10 were voted – one from each respective sport – as the top selections among the group.
To be qualified for Academic All-Conference and Sport Excellence honors, a student-athlete must have started at least half or played in two-thirds of all contests while making significant contributions and maintaining a 3.3 GPA (on a 4.0 scale).
One of the league's most prestigious awards, the Sport Excellence Award winners come from six different schools, with a league-best three selections coming from Merrimack in the form of junior
Charlie Bertrand (men's lacrosse) and seniors
Krystal Knight (women's golf) and
Mana Seifaei (women's tennis). Only Le Moyne and Southern New Hampshire had more than one honoree.
Bertrand concluded his junior year by helping lead the Warriors to a second straight national title. Additionally, for the second straight season, Bertrand won the Elite 90 Award for boasting the top GPA at championship weekend. He holds a 3.92 GPA as a Mechanical Engineering major heading into his senior year. On the field, Bertrand was named the USILA Player of the Year and Attackman of the Year for the second straight season, which followed his being named the Northeast-10 Conference and the New England Player of the Year. He was also the only Division II player named to the Tewaaraton Watch List during the winter. Off it, Bertrand was an NE10 Academic All-Conference pick and a CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-America First Team selection. Statistically, Bertrand compiled 97 points on the year (78 goals, 19 assists). He led the nation in points per game (6.06) and goals per game (4.88); his 13 man-up goals were second nationally, as well. He filled out his statistical ledger with 26 ground balls and seven caused turnovers.
A Biology major who graduated with a 3.94 GPA, Knight became Merrimack's first-ever Women's Golf Coaches Association All-American and the program's first-ever CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-American (third team) after capturing a 19th-place finish at the NCAA Championship, where she was just the second student-athlete in school history to qualify as an individual for. She capped off a tremendous career for the Warriors with seven individual titles – including her second straight conference crown back in the fall. The Groveland, Massachusetts, native averaged 73.92 strokes over 25 rounds this season, the 13th-lowest average among all Division II golfers. She will graduate as the most decorated golfer from a statistical standpoint in school history with a career scoring average of 76.85, nearly four strokes better than the next best competitor. She also was a two-time conference champion and a three-time qualifier for the NCAA regional championship, as well as a one-time qualifier for the national championship. She also is the program's first-ever four-time all-conference first team honoree and is now a three-time NE10 All-Academic Team selection and a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree.
Graduating with a 3.948 GPA as an electrical engineering major, Seifaei concluded her impressive Merrimack career both on the tennis courts and in the classroom this past spring. Seifaei played at first singles and first doubles for a Merrimack team that surprised many by reaching the conference finals, where Seifaei claimed the NE10's Elite 24 Award by having the highest GPA at the conference championship match. She finished her career as a three-time NE10 Academic All-Conference selection, receiving the honor in every year she was eligible. She posted 16 total victories in 2018-19, including 12 doubles triumphs.
