Smir Earns Preseason Honor From Top Drawer Soccer

CHAPEL HILL—University of North Carolina graduate student goalkeeper Alec Smir has been named to Top Drawer Soccer's Preseason Best XI Third Team for the 2021 season, the website announced.

Smir, who earned second-team All-ACC honors in 2020 after leading the conference in shutouts with 10, will lead the Tar Heels into the 2021 regular season beginning this weekend with home games against Bucknell (Thursday Aug. 26) and VCU (Sunday Aug. 29) at Dorrance Field.

Top Drawer Soccer's teams are listed below.

Preseason Best XI Teams

First Team

F: Victor Bezerra (Indiana), Zach Ryan (Stanford), Valentin Noel (Pittsburgh)

M: Veljko Petkovic (Pittsburgh), Vitor Dias (Marshall), Dante Polvara (Georgetown), Dylan Teves (Washington)

D: Charlie Ostrem (Washington), Nico Benalcazar (Wake Forest), Jasper Loeffelsend (Pittsburgh)

GK: Roman Celentano (Indiana)

Second Team

F: Nicolo Mulatero (Missouri State), Kyle Holcomb (Wake Forest), Matthew Myers (High Point)

M: Noel Caliskan (Loyola Marymount), Sebastian Schacht (St. Mary's (CA), Gino Vivi (UCF), Sean Zawadzki (Georgetown)

D: Spencer Glass (Indiana), Kyle Hiebert (Missouri State), Justin Malou (Clemson)

GK: Giannis Nikopolidis (Georgetown)

Third Team

F: CJ Tibbling (Seton Hall), Ousseni Bouda (Stanford), Diego Gutierrez (Creighton)

M: Noah Jensen (Oakland), Sebastian Chalbaud (High Point), Marc Ybarra(Michigan), Sofiane Djeffal (Oregon State)

D: Esai Easley (Grand Canyon), Bridger Hansen (New Hampshire), Nathan Dossantos (Marshall)

GK: Alec Smir (North Carolina)

Freshman Best XI

F: Caden Stafford (Maryland), Sandor Pelle (Yale), Ilijah Paul (Washington)

M: William Reilly (Stanford), Bailey Sparks (SMU), Zemi Rodriguez (American), Tommy Mihalic (Indiana)

D: D Kieran Sargeant (Georgetown), Dante Huckaby (Louisville), Jonas Buechte (Akron)

GK: Emmanuel Smalios (St. John's)

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Alec Smir

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