Lucky Mkosana '08 Named Ivy League Player of the Year

PRINCETON, N.J. -- After leading the League in goal scoring for the second time in four seasons and helping the Big Green to a fifth consecutive appearance in the NCAA Championship field, Dartmouth senior forward Lucky Mkosana (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) has been named the 2011 Ivy League Men’s Soccer Player of the Year.

Mkosana scored ten goals this season to lead the League in scoring, a feat he also accomplished when he netted 11 goals as a freshman en route to claiming Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors in 2008. In 2011, he led the Big Green with 21 points on ten goals and an assist. Three of his goals proved to be game-winning strikes, while two others were game-tying goals. He is the fourth Dartmouth player to be named the Ivy League Player of the Year and first since Craig Henderson earned the honor in 2008.

With an 89th-minute goal against Cornell on Nov. 5, Mkosana became Dartmouth's all-time leading scorer, breaking a record that stood since the 1950s. The senior captain is also Dartmouth's all-time points leader with 79.

Mkosana has the added distinction of being a unanimous selection to the 2011 All-Ivy first team, marking his fourth consecutive first team All-Ivy honor. Since the inaugural All-Ivy men’s soccer team came out in 1955, Mkosana is just the sixth player to be named to the All-Ivy first team in all four years of his career and the first to do so with the Big Green. He is also just the sixth player since 1979 (when the Ivy League began honoring a men’s soccer Player and Rookie of the Year) to win both individual awards. Harvard’s Andre Akpan, who graduated in 2009 and now plays for Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids, was the last to accomplish both those feats.