ROCHESTER, NY – Senior defenseman Alexander Kuqali (Pittsburgh, PA/Sioux City Musketeers) of the RIT men’s hockey team was named one of 20 candidates for the Senior CLASS Award on Friday, Jan. 29. To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be a senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence – classroom, character, community and competition.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in the community.
Kuqali has enjoyed an excellent career with the Tigers, helping them win the 2015 Atlantic Hockey Championship and advance to the NCAA Midwest Regional Final. He has appeared in 138 career games with 12 goals, 41 assists, 53 points, and a plus-17 rating. In 2014-15, Kuqali served as an assistant captain, garnered All-Atlantic Hockey Third Team honors and was named to the NCAA Midwest Regional All-Tournament Team. He was the Atlantic Hockey Rookie of the Month in December, 2012.
In 24 games as this season, Kuqali, one of RIT’s three captains, has 10 points on two goals and eight assists, as the Tigers have a 12-10-2 overall mark and 12-5-1 record in Atlantic Hockey play. He was named the Atlantic Hockey Defensive Player of the Week on Jan. 19.
In the classroom, Kuqali maintains an excellent 3.89 grade point average as an accounting major. Kuqali won RIT’s Green B. Williams Award for Academic Excellence in 2015 and was a CoSIDA/Capital One Academic All-District At-Large First Team selection. In addition, Kuqali was one of eight student-athletes to earn Atlantic Hockey Academic All-Star honors for maintaining a 4.0 GPA in 2014-15. He is a three-time member of the Atlantic Hockey All-Academic team and has made the Dean’s List seven times at RIT.
Kuqali, who also serves on RIT’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), is a 2016 Saunders College of Business commencement speaker nominee. In the community, Kuqali has delivered teddy bears to children at the Rochester Regional Health Pediatric Department and participated in sled hockey with a local Rochester area group and USA Hockey.
The 20 candidates will be narrowed to 10 finalists in February, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one candidate who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character and competition. The Senior CLASS Award winner will be announced during the 2016 NCAA Men’s Frozen Final Four in April.
Kuqali and the Tigers return to action tonight, opening a two-game series with Holy Cross from the Gene Polisseni Center, starting at 7:05 p.m. RIT has won five straight games to move into second place in the Atlantic Hockey standings.
