WACO, Texas – Texas College’s Jony Rivera was recognized as the Red River Athletic Conference Men’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Week for Oct. 1-7, and Northwood University’s (Texas) Michael Crawford earned the conference’s defensive player award for the same dates.

Rivera, a freshman midfielder from Conroe, Texas, netted six goals last week in a Steers victory and a tie. He scored four goals in an 11-1 win over Bacone College (Okla.) and added another contest with Huston-Tillotson University (Texas) that ended up knotted at 2-2. Rivera leads TC in scoring on the season with 13 goals and six assists. The Steers are 3-1-1 in the RRAC and 5-7-3 overall.

Crawford, a junior goalkeeper from Oklahoma City, didn’t allow a single goal en route to two victories over conference opponents last week. In a 5-1 win over Southwestern Assemblies of God University (Texas), he kept the Lions scoreless until being replaced in the final minutes of the game with eight saves. Crawford followed that performance with a 3-0 shutout victory over College of the Southwest (N.M.) on Saturday. Northwood improved to 2-1 in conference play and 3-8-1 on the season.

Additional offensive player of the week nominees included Abraham Bernal (HTU), Leo Cubrilo (Texas Wesleyan University) and Dustin Hollier (NU). Other defensive nominees included Diego Flores (HTU) and Joakim Soderbaum (TWU).

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