St. Thomas’ fifth-year Goalkeeper Niklas Martensson was named TicketSmarter’s Men’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 25.
The award follows the Tommies’ first wins of the season on Oct. 23 and 26, where Martensson kept the Tommies afloat during both 1-0 shutout matches, with a combined 12 saves.
Martensson initially had no idea that he had received the award and only learned about it through a text from a roommate. After receiving the award, Martensson said that his first reaction was to reflect on the journey leading up to it.
“It takes a team to win that award,” Martensson said. “That’s not something that’s individual, but I think that it is a reflection on my individual journey in the sense that it does take a village to build a journey like this.”
Coach John Lowery also acknowledged the importance of the communal effort that the team puts in, especially the goalkeepers.
“I think our whole goalkeeping group has made everyone better,” Lowery said. “I’m really happy for Niklas, and I’m proud of him. He’s a great person, and he embodies the kind of person we want in this program.”
Martensson graduated from Marquette High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was a member of the FC Wisconsin soccer club. His soccer career didn’t start there, though.
“I’ve been playing soccer pretty much ever since I could walk,” Martensson said. “It was the first sport that I really fell in love with.”
The award comes at the end of Martensson’s final year with the Tommies before the team’s final match of its first Division I season. Lowery said that this year was a learning experience and is already thinking about next season.
“I think the guys are starting to see that if you trust the process, you’re going to get results,” Lowery said. “We feel very comfortable that we’re going to have a say in what happens in the Summit League.”
Martensson hopes to finish the season strong and wants to see how the team grows together in the future, even after he has graduated.
“We’ve been playing some really good attacking soccer, and we’ve been defending our butts off when it comes down to it,” Martensson said. “Just building that team chemistry and that hopefully can move forward into the spring season for the new guys and that can be carried forward by our underclassmen.”
St. Thomas defeated the Kansas City Roos 2-1 on Saturday Oct. 30 in the Tommies’ final match of the season.
Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.