It's Awards Season, and We're Not Talking About the Grammys

Awards... most players will tell you they don't matter. "Only team success matters" they say. We know they're kind of lying. Everyone likes to be told how good they are. We'll do that here.

Each year after the regular season wraps up in men's soccer, the Horizon League announces its postseason awards. This includes a first- and second-team all-league, an all-newcomer team plus six individual awards. We should know preseason predictions don't mean much but there are still a lot of surprises on this year's list.

The UIC Flames were coming off a season in which they were just over three minutes away from a second-straight Elite Eight appearance and entered the season as the 10th-ranked team in the nation. They had a returning all-American in goal, yet that Flame is not going to appear anywhere on the list below. It's amazing to think the league has gotten to a point in men's soccer where the top two teams in the preseason poll finish fifth and ninth respectively. To paraphrase the late great Richard Pryor, this league is good and it deep too!

Throughout the season, I was captivated by the talent and style of play of the Green Bay Phoenix. Led by junior JC Banks, the Phoenix was consistently putting home two or more goals per game (they did in all but three of 17 games this season!). I was on the Phoenix bandwagon pretty early on, actually I was sitting shotgun as Phlash drove.

To say the least, Mr. Banks was handsomely rewarded for his offensive onslaught, bringing home both Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year accolades. I suppose it was an easy choice for the voters after they looked at the final regular-season statistics and Banks finished 16 points ahead of the number two scorer in the conference.

Offense obviously isn't the only way to succeed in the game of soccer, you can also just make sure the other team doesn't score. That's the approach the No. 24 team in the country and regular-season champion has taken the Butler Bulldogs. This season the team has only surrendered 10 goals in 16 games... thanks in large part to 2009 Defensive Player of the Year Matt Hedges.

The headman of the Butler program, Kelly Findley, was also rewarded for his team's success on the postseason awards listing, taking home the Coach of the Year hardware. The Bulldogs weren't done there. Julian Cardona, a freshman from Omaha, Nebraska, finished the year fifth in the league in points and nabbed Newcomer of the Year honors.

Rounding out the individual awards, Goalkeeper of the Year went to Valparaiso's Ryan Schwarz. The Crusaders finished the regular season on a high note, going 4-0-1 in their last five and the junior net minder only allowed one goal in the final four contests... not too shabby.

I want to congratulate all of the postseason award honorees on a fantastic season (a full listing can be found on HorizonLeague.org). Let's hope the Horizon League men's soccer season is far from over and we have multiple teams play their way deep into the NCAA Tournament. Before any of them can think of NCAA glory, they must first take care of business in the conference championship, which begins in roughly an hour with the quarterfinals.

Make sure to tune into HLN for full coverage of the semifinals and finals from the Butler Bowl in Indianapolis, Indiana... looking forward to a few days of first-class soccer and can't wait to see which team comes out on top.