NEW YORK CITY – Fort Lewis College women's soccer player Hayley Hollenga will be among this week's “Faces in the Crowd,” a popular feature listing top amateur athletes in Sports Illustrated.

Fourth-year Fort Lewis College women's soccer coach Damian Clarke said the award is special “considering how hard Hayley has worked at athletics, being a former two-sport college athlete in basketball as well as soccer, coming back from a broken leg in 2008, and getting her team off to such a great start.

“This kid has the true mindset of a champion and the composure to win games,” he added. “Hayley scores goals for fun.”

Hollenga, a 5-foot-8 junior from Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, was honored for scoring four game-winning goals in a five-game span — including “golden goals” that ended three overtime contests.

Hollenga netted game-winning goals in FLC's 1-0 double-overtime win against Augustana on Sept. 5, in a 1-0 win at West Texas A&M on Sept. 10, in a 2-1 double-overtime victory at Eastern N.M. on Sept. 12, and in a 2-1 overtime win at Nebraska-Kearney on Sept. 19.

The day after her most recent overtime heroics, Fort Lewis College Assistant Director of Athletics for External Operations and Communications Chris Aaland nominated her for the honor on the Sports Illustrated website. Then the waiting began.

“I was notified the next day that Hayley was receiving strong consideration for the award,” said Aaland, who returned to Skyhawk Athletics in mid-August after a nine-year absence. “The staff at Sports Illustrated is well aware how rare game-winning and golden goals are in the sport of soccer. To have a player account for four game-winners in five games is an extraordinary feat.”

Sports Illustrated notified Aaland on Sept. 27 that Hollenga had been chosen. Aaland immediately notified Skyhawk athletic administrators, the women's soccer coaching staff, and Hollenga herself.

“Hayley took it in stride,” said Aaland. “Like the rest of her teammates, her goals aren't individual ones, but the overall success of the Skyhawk women's soccer team. Making a big splash in the NCAA playoffs is their ultimate challenge.”

Hollenga appears in the online version of Sports Illustrated today, available to subscribers. The issue that features Hollenga hits newsstands on Thursday, Sept. 30.

More than 16,000 athletes have appeared in “Faces in the Crowd” since it was debuted in the Jan. 9, 1956 issue. A veritable “Who's Who” has appeared in the feature, including such icons as Jack Nicklaus, Billie Jean King, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Terry Bradshaw, Emmitt Smith, Wilma Rudolph, Bill Walton, Cheryl Miller, Carl Lewis and Tiger Woods. Some celebrities who aren't immediately associated with athletics — like fashion designer Vera Wang and actor/songwriter Kris Kristofferson — have also appeared among the “Faces.”

Hollenga is the first Fort Lewis College student-athlete to receive the honor, although former cyclist Todd Wells appeared as an Old Spice Athlete of the Month in Sports Illustrated back in the 1990s.

Already one of the most decorated women's soccer players in the history of the program, Hollenga was a Preseason All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selection this fall and won RMAC Offensive Player of the Week honors on Sept. 14. She comes off a season in which she scored a career-high 10 goals and earned third team All-RMAC and All-Central Region accolades. She was also a RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll performer and was named to the All-RMAC Tournament Team as a sophomore. As a true freshman in 2007, she earned second team All-Midwest Region honors.

As a basketball player at Fort Lewis College, she was a reserve guard on the Skyhawk team that finished second in the NCAA Division II women's basketball playoffs last March. During her stint on the Skyhawk basketball team, FLC won three consecutive RMAC regular season and West Division titles and advanced to March Madness three times.

Hollenga is solely focusing on soccer now, and the Skyhawks are reaping the benefits. FLC is ranked No. 8 in the latest NSCAA Division II poll, released yesterday. The Skyhawks are 8-1-0 overall, 4-1-0 and in first place in the RMAC.

Fort Lewis continues its six-game homestand against New Mexico Highlands (4-3-1, 2-1-1) at 1 p.m. Friday.