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Terrell Lloyd

Waltz Wins WAC Defensive Player Of The Week Award

DENVER – San Josè State's Eric Waltz has been named the TicketSmarter Western Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Week for Apr. 5-11. 

Waltz, a freshman goalkeeper from San José (Valley Christian HS), helped lead the Spartans to a shutout victory on Monday night. The hometown product spent all 90 minutes in goal, earning the shutout in his first career appearance and start. 

"This was a well-deserved clean sheet for Eric," says head coach Simon Tobin. "He works in training week in and week out and had an excellent match against UNLV. The award is a reflection of his hard work and the team's strong defending as a whole." 

In addition to the clean sheet, Waltz made four saves while facing 11 shots in the shutout effort. He boasts a perfect 0.00 goals against average on the season along with a 1.000 save percentage.
 



This marks the first weekly honor of Waltz's career and the fourth from the conference office this season. This marks the most weekly awards the program has earned in a season since winning four on the 2008 campaign (Efrain Burgos, Richard Mann, Nick Cukar, Lewis Sweeney). 

2008 was also the last season in which multiple Spartan goalkeepers earned a conference player of the week award (Mann and Sweeney). Sophomore keeper David Sweeney (no relation) was named the WAC Defensive Player of the Week on March 29. 

SJSU has won four consecutive contests and kicks off postseason play on Tuesday against Air Force in the quarterfinals of the WAC Tournament. Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. in Las Vegas. 

Other defensive nominees: Air Force's Jared Dove averaged 84 minutes on the week to help lead the Falcon defense in a pair of home wins over California Baptist and Houston Baptist … California Baptist's Tim Bernhardsson played all 90 minutes on the back line as the Lancers held Utah Valley to just five shots on goal in a 4-1 win … Grand Canyon's Esai Easley helped the Lopes defense hold UNLV to just three shots as GCU won the regular season title with a 2-1 win in Las Vegas … UT Rio Grande Valley's Trevor Schneider recorded his third shutout of the season in a 1-0 win over UIW on Friday afternoon.