Mission Viejo UCLA Soccer Star Named Academic All-American, Again

Mission Viejo High grad Joe Sofia has been named to the Capital One Academic All-American team for the second year in a row.

Here's more, courtesy of UCLA Athletics:

For the second consecutive year, senior captain Joe Sofia has been named to the first-team Capital One Academic All-America team, as announced by the organization today. By receiving the honor in 2013, Sofia becomes the only UCLA men’s soccer player to have been named to the Academic All-America team twice.

The senior defender from Dove Canyon, Calif. has played in 18 of UCLA’s 19 matches this season while serving as the anchor of the back line. He has captained the Bruins to the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and a 12-3-4 record thus far, all while helping UCLA earn seven shutouts on the season. Additionally, Sofia leads all of UCLA’s position players in minutes with 1,604. Last week, he scored his first goal of the year in the Bruins’ 4-0 victory over Elon in the NCAA Second Round.

Off the field, Sofia became UCLA’s first ever men’s soccer player to earn first-team Capital One Academic All-America honors in 2012 and has upheld the highest GPA among all UCLA student-athletes since the spring of 2012. In addition, he is a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award and a three-time Pac-12 All-Academic honoree.