Santos Honored With MVC Offensive Player of the Week

Photo courtesy of goredbirds.com

NORMAL, Ill.- For Illinois State senior midfielder Ashley Santos, game day preparation is a key to her success in earning another Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Offensive Player of the Week award. 

“For me I have my little routine but depending on the day, it depends on what i’m gonna kind of be doing,” said Santos. “For Friday, I’ll be at school most of the day and then it’s always a pregame meal of Panera so i’m sure a teammate and I will go to Panera on Friday before the game. Then it’s getting mind and body right, so always get some treatment before the game, a good stretch, a good walk. I always take Bailey for a nice walk on game days, that’s my dog. To get the legs moving because if you sit around all day for an afternoon game you’ll be tight. So always a good stretch, treatment, a nice Panera meal, and then I always have a few songs that I listen to before a game, a snack, and then it’s go time.”

In the Redbird’s 1-0 win over Evansville, Santos played the whole 90 minutes of the game and scored the game winning goal. For her performance against the Purple Aces, Santos earned the honor of being named the MVC Offensive Player of the Week for the second time this season and the third straight week that a Redbird has taken this honor.

Santos expands on what it means to her to be recognized for this honor for the second time this season.

“It’s definitely really cool,” said Santos. “The second week was my teammate Abby so it’s nice to see Illinois State just like riding the offensive player of the week award. These are my first goals career wise so it’s kinda crazy to me. Definitely not used to this kind of thing but it’s really nice to get some recognition but I owe it all to my teammates and like I said Abby is up there with me too so it feels good. We just gotta keep going.”

The Redbirds look to keep the momentum going as they host the visiting Missouri State on Friday, March 5th with kickoff starting at 4 pm.