Release courtesy of UNLV Athletics.
LAS VEGAS – UNLV Women’s Soccer senior and 2016 Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year Lily Sender became the second player in program history to earn CoSIDA Academic All-America® honors. The teams, announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) organization Tuesday, honor 33 players around the country for outstanding work on the field and in the classroom. 
Sender was selected as one of 11 members, including one of three forwards, for the Academic All-America Third Team. She earned the Rebels’ first All-District honor since 2013, which placed her on the national ballot for the All-America award. She joins former Rebel goalkeeper Kylie Wassell, who garnered a third team selection in 2012, as the only other UNLV women’s soccer player to earn the honor and is the 31st UNLV athlete to earn CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in the school’s history.
The senior from Honolulu, Hawaii, turned in a stellar final season with the Rebels, leading the team and the Mountain West in goals and points to help the program reach its first NCAA tournament since 2006. After registering one goal and one assist in her previous three seasons, Sender exploded this year for eight assists, 15 goals and 38 points, setting new single-season individual records in the latter two categories. Sender’s performance garnered league Offensive Player of the Year honors while her goals and points totals ranked top-20 in the nation in 2016. Her breakout year was instrumental in helping the team win Mountain West regular season and conference tournament titles in the same season for the first time in program history as the Rebels set new school records for most win (16), goals (51) and assists (50) in a single season. Off the field, Sender is majoring in Mechanical Engineering, earning a 3.54 grade-point-average, which is good for third-highest on the team. After graduation, Sender plans to pursue a master’s degree in the same field.
Sender was a Mountain West All-Academic selection in 2015 and was named a 2015-16 Mountain West Scholar-Athlete this past July. 
Student-athletes must be in at least their second season, hold a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.30 and be a starter or important reserve to be eligible for the CoSIDA Academic All-America teams. The official CoSiDA Academic All-America release can be found here.