NAPERVILLE – Three-time reigning College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) football champion North Central placed a league-best 17 student-athletes on the All-CCIW Team released by the conference office on Tuesday morning.
The Cardinals also claimed four postseason specialty awards, including the second consecutive CCIW Bob Reade Coach of the Year selection for head coach Brad Spencer. Spencer, now in his second year as head coach, guided the Cardinals to an unbeaten regular season and the nation’s top ranking for the second consecutive season. He is the first repeat winner of the CCIW Bob Reade Coach of the Year award since Wheaton’s Mike Swider in 2014 and 2015, and the first NCC head coach to repeat since John Thorne in 2010 and 2011.
The CCIW Art Keller Offensive Student-Athlete of the Year is North Central quarterback Luke Lehnen. The junior from Chatham, Ill. closed the regular season as the national leader in completion percentage (76.7), passing efficiency (287.7), yards per completion (21.37) and yards per attempt (16.38). He will enter Saturday’s postseason opener 115-for-150 for 2,457 yards, 34 touchdowns and only one interception. He added 452 rushing yards and an additional nine scores on the ground. Lehnen’s 2023 selection marks the seventh consecutive season a North Central player has won the award and the fifth North Central quarterback to earn the honor since 2005.
North Central senior defensive lineman Martin Egbo was voted the CCIW Don Larson Defensive Student-Athlete of the Year. Egbo, a Coraopolis, Pa. native, finished the nine-game CCIW schedule as the conference leader with 18.5 tackles for loss and also ranked third with 7.0 sacks. His tackles for loss total ranked 17th nationally, and he also added…
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