Contact: Chassidy Holloway, Assistant Executive Director, holloway@midwestconference.org
 
GRINNELL, Iowa — The 2019-20 recipients of the Ruth Peterson and Roy W. LeClere Awards was announced by the Midwest Conference (MWC) on Wednesday. Ripon College senior Kayla Furlano is the recipient of the Ruth Peterson Award, while St. Norbert College senior Josh Koleske is recognized as the Roy W. LeClere Award recipient. 
 
Awarded each year, the Ruth Peterson and Roy W. LeClere Awards are presented to the female and male scholar-athletes who achieved the highest-grade point average during their junior years.
 
Ruth Peterson is the former Commissioner of the Midwest Athletics Conference for Women, who went on to serve as the Co-Commissioner of the MWC. Peterson was a Beloit College alum and employee, passed away in October of 2006. Roy W. LeClere was a collegiate sports enthusiast whose passion for the MWC led friends and co-workers to originally sponsor the award as a memorial in his honor.
 
Furlano, a women’s soccer player from West Bend, Wisconsin, is a psychology major and a three-time MWC Academic All-Conference selection. This past season, Furlano appeared in seventeen of eighteen Red Hawk matches with four starts. Furlano is the fifth Red Hawk to win the Peterson Award.
 
Koleske, a three-time MWC Men’s Soccer Elite 20 Award recipient, is a biology major and native of Appleton, Wisconsin. The 2019 First Team All-Conference goalkeeper holds the St. Norbert career record for shutouts with seventeen and finished his career with a record of 41-10-6. Koleske was also named to the 2019 NCAA Division III College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America First Team for men’s soccer.  For the second consecutive year, a Green Knight is the winner of the LeClere Award and Koleske is the sixth overall.