ST. LOUIS, Mo. – After enjoying historic individual seasons on the pitch, the tandem of Zac Blaydes and Ian McGrath was honored for its work off the field on Monday, with each taking home Scholar-Athlete honors from the Missouri Valley Conference.
 
The Scholar-Athlete team, which is selected annually from a pool of athletes that boast of a 3.2 grade-point-average or better, features 11 players from around the conference with a further seven taking home an honorable mention. In order to qualify, a player must have appeared in at least 75% of his team's matches and reached sophomore status in eligibility.
 
Blaydes, a sophomore out of Midway, Ky., earned his spot on the team after finishing with the MVC lead in assists. The midfielder was a second-team all-conference honoree, and after tying with Loyola's Brody Kraussel with 10 helpers on the year, he's the sixth player in school history to lead the league in the category.
 
Thanks in large part to that service from Blaydes, McGrath also put together a season to remember, becoming UE's first double-digit goal-scorer since 2003. The New Lenox, Ill., product found the net 11 times in 2016, ending as the league's second-leading scorer and earning a spot on the conference's first team.
 
Both players were key members of an Aces squad in 2016 that featured the second-largest turnaround in school history, posting a 10-win season and earning a victory in the MVC tournament for the first time since 2009.
 
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