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Field Hockey

Alyssa Manley wins Honda Award as nation’s top field hockey player

Jessica Sheldon | Staff Photographer

Alyssa Manley (5) earned the Honda Award, which is given to the top player in the country. She helped lead Syracuse to a national championship this season.

Alyssa Manley was awarded the Honda Sports Award for field hockey, the Collegiate Women Sports Awards announced Friday. Manley, the senior captain of Syracuse’s national championship team, became SU’s first to win the award, beating out Duke’s Lauren Blazing, Maryland’s Sarah Sprink and Connecticut’s Roisin Upton.

In 2015, Manley started all 22 games and tallied four goals with seven assists from the midfield.

The Honda Sports Award is given annually by the CWSA to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA sports and is considered one of the highest honors a female college athlete can receive. Manley’s award makes her a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the 2016 Honda Cup.

The female athlete who wins the Honda Cup is generally considered the best athlete in all of female NCAA sports.

“I’m very honored that I was voted for this award,” Manley said in an SU Athletics release. “… Everything that has happened through this whole year and my time here has been really great.”



Manley was named Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year, an All-American for the third time and a first-team All-American for the second time this past season.

“I’m thrilled for Alyssa Manley, she’s one of the most humble and hard-working athletes you’d ever meet,” said head coach Ange Bradley in the release. “For her to think about where she started to this point — the pinnacle of her collegiate career — is just awesome.”





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