STANFORD, Calif. – Tomas Hilliard-Arce and Jeremy Gunn were named Top Drawer Soccer's player and coach of the year and three other players landed on the organizations Best XI teams on Monday morning.
Hilliard-Arce is the second Stanford men's player in the past three seasons to earn recognition as Top Drawer Soccer's Division I Men's Player of the Year, joining Jordan Morris in 2015. The senior, one of three MAC Hermann Trophy finalists, eclipsed a talented field that included Jon Bakero (Wake Forest), Chris Mueller (Wisconsin) and Cameron Lindley (North Carolina) for the honor after he completed his college career with a third straight national title last Sunday.
One of three two-time, first-team All-Americans in program history along with Morris and Brandon Vincent, Hilliard-Arce led Stanford to three national championships, four Pac-12 titles and a 65-10-13 overall record (.813) in his four years on The Farm.
A two-time Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, Hilliard-Arce championed a Cardinal defense that posted 47 shutouts among his 87 career appearances at center back. Stanford had a 0.59 team goals against average with Hilliard-Arce in the lineup and finished in the top 10 nationally that category each of the last three years, including second this season (0.382). The Cardinal won each of its last two national championships without allowing a postseason goal and is in the midst of an NCAA-record run of 12 consecutive postseason shutouts spanning 1,214:20 of match time. A force on set pieces, Hilliard-Arce also finished his career with 13 goals and five assists, including four goals and three assists in 2017.
The architect of one of the most dominant runs in collegiate men's soccer, Jeremy Gunn secured the first men's coach of the year award handed out by Top Drawer Soccer. Gunn, who has led a team to the College Cup final four times in the past seven seasons, joined Bruce Arena as the only coaches to win three consecutive NCAA men's soccer championships (Virginia; 1991-94).
The four-time reigning Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Gunn's teams are 84-25-18 (.728) in his five-plus seasons on The Farm. He owns a career record of 271-86-49 (.726) in 19 seasons, a mark which makes him the fourth winningest active coach at the Division I level by percentage. His Cardinal, which tied a program record with 19 wins this year, had its best scoring offense since 2001 and the best defense in program history, is unbeaten in its last 15 tournament matches.
Foster Langsdorf and Drew Skundrich were also voted to the Top Drawer Soccer Best XI second team and Logan Panchot landed on the Best XI freshman second team.
Langsdorf finished his career as the Pac-12's career scoring leader (37 goals) and Skundrich was a versatile, two-time team captain, the midfield engine behind Stanford's championship dominance and had career highs in goals (5) and assists (5) as a senior. Panchot started all 23 games at right back and tallied two goals and one assist in his debut season.
