As announced today by the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA), Humboldt State University men’s soccer player Motoki Sato is the recipient of the 2020 CCAA Men’s Soccer Championship Scholar-Athlete award. 

The Championship Scholar Award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the final CCAA championship site in each conference-sponsored sport. For the 2020-21 academic year, all participating student-athletes in each sport will receive consideration for the award.

“This is a great honor for Motoki and a positive reflection of all the hard work he puts in on and off the field, we are very proud of him,” said Humboldt State head men’s soccer coach Fred Jungemann.

During his first two years in the Green and Gold, Sato has played in 28 games and started in 14 while playing in 1328 minutes.  During the 2019 season, Sato was the recipient of the D2ADA Academic Achievement Award.  The Humboldt State Presidential Scholar also was named to the 2019 CCAA Fall Academic Team as well as the 2019-20 CCAA All-Academic Team.  The past two academic years, Sato has been a member of the Humboldt State University Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.  Humboldt State’s men’s soccer team has received the United Soccer Team Academic Awards during Sato’s first two seasons as a Lumberjack.

The men’s soccer junior is the fourth Lumberjack to earn the CCAA Championship Scholar-Athlete Award and first HSU men’s soccer player to receive this honor. Daniel LaBelle (men’s track and field-2018-19), Cessair McKinney (women’s track and field-2018-19) and Riann Thayer (women’s basketball-2017-18) are the three other Lumberjacks to earn this prestigious honor for their respective sport.

Link to the release by the CCAA