November 30, 2012
Hoscheit, Smith named latest Swartz Award winners
 |
| Junior soccer player Maggie Hoscheit and senior cross country runner Justin Smith earned recognition from the CCIW as Jack Swartz Award winners for the fall season. |
Senior cross country runner Jonathan Smith (Moline HS, Moline, Ill.) and junior soccer player Maggie Hoscheit (St. Charles East HS, St. Charles, Ill.) have been named as the winners of the Jack Swartz Award in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin for the fall athletic season of 2012-13. Smith, an All-American in cross country will represent the men's sports and Hoscheit, a Capital One Academic All-American in soccer is the women's sports winner.
The Jack Swartz Award is given to one male and one female athlete at the end of each athletic season. The honor is given by the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin and each of the eight schools in the league are allowed to pick their own representatives. The only requirement is that the winners must earn a varsity letter in his/her sport and have a grade point average of at least 3.50. The award is named after the late Jack Swartz, who served as the Commissioner of the CCIW until his death in 1998.
Smith has enjoyed an extremely consistent career while running for veteran head coach Paul Olsen's Vikings. This past fall, however, he became a dominant number one runner and etched his name into the Augustana history books when he became the 25th Viking to earn All-America recognition in men's cross country. Smith finished 34th in the NCAA Division III national meet on November 17 in Terre Haute, Indiana with a time of 25:04.4.
He started the season with a fourth place finish at the Western Illinois Invitational on August 31 and went on to be the top Augustana runner in each of the eight meets he competed in during the 2012 season. He followed the WIU meet with a 14th place finish at the Illinois Intercollegiate Championships on September 14 and then took fourth at the Brissman-Lundeen Invitational on September 1. At the Pre-National meet held on the same Terre Haute course as the national meet, he was seventh on October 6. After placing 21st at the UW-Oshkosh Invitational on October 13, he took fifth in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championship on October 27. His 15th place finish at the NCAA Division III Midwest Regional on November 10 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin punched his ticket to the national meet.
Smith is a biology major with a 3.66 grade point average and the son of Brian and Lisa Smith of Moline, Illinois.
Hoscheit was a standout defender for head coach Scott Mejia's women's soccer team that won the CCIW title with a perfect 7-0 league record. She was a key figure in Augustana's success all season long as the Vikings finished 16-5 overall and made the NCAA Division III national tournament for the third time in the last four years and for the fifth time in school history.
She was named to the Capital One Academic All-America team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). In doing so, Hoscheit became the 140th athlete in Augustana history to win the prestigious honor and help the Vikings remain in sixth place on the all-time list, regardless of division.
She was also a first team all-conference selection and helped to anchor a defense that allowed just 22 goals in 21 matches for a goals-against-average of 1.08. Augustana recorded eight shutouts and gave up just 11.3 shots per game.
Hoscheit was a member of the marketing team for the "Payne in the ALS 5000 meter" fundraising event last spring. An active member of Augustana's Student Athlete Advisory Committee, she is also a member of the school's biology club. She is currently helping a professor with a psychological-based research project. She has been very active in several volunteer events, including a Salvation Army Food Bank, Dance Marathon, Relay for Life and Hospice Volunteer. She experienced a week-long 24 hour live-in mission trip at the Missionaries of Charity's Gift of Peace Home in Washington D.D. in the summer of 2012.
The daughter of John and Teri Hoscheit of St. Charles, Illinois, Maggie is a biology and pre-medicine major with a 3.87 grade point average.
A total of 90 Augustana athletes earned academic all-conference honors in the CCIW for the fall sports. In order to be named to the academic all-conference team the athlete has to earn a varsity letter and must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.30.
