Navy soccer player Meghan Hegarty earns NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship

INDIANAPOLIS (Via Navy) – Navy women’s soccer midfielder Meghan Hegarty (Richmond, Va.) was announced as a recipient of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship on Friday. Hegarty was one of 58 fall student-athletes from across all three levels of NCAA competition to garner the prestigious award.

The NCAA awards up to 175 postgraduate scholarships annually. The scholarships are awarded to a student-athlete in their final year of collegiate eligibility for use toward an accredited graduate program. Awardees are evaluated on their academic and athletic achievement, campus involvement, community service, volunteer activities and demonstrated leadership. The program rewards college athletes whose dedication and effort reflect the characteristics needed to succeed in graduate study.

Hegarty, the 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-American for NCAA Division I women’s soccer and 2017 Patriot League Midfielder of the Year, has shown prowess both on and off the field for her entire four-year career in Annapolis. This past fall, Hegarty was selected by the Patriot League’s coaches as the premier two-way player in the league as she started all 21 games for the Mids as the team’s holding midfielder. With responsibilities on both ends of the field, she notched eight points on two goals and four assists on offense, while providing strong defensive marking and veteran leadership to a defense that posted 13 shutouts, the fifth-most in program history.

In the classroom, Hegarty has a 3.98 GPA in operations research and ranks 20th in the Naval Academy’s Overall Order of Merit and 10th in Military Order of Merit. She service selected the United States Navy Medical Corps with a specific area of interest in dentistry. She was recently accepted into the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine to further her studies following graduation.

The one-time non-renewable scholarships of $7,500 are awarded three times a year corresponding to each sport season (fall, winter and spring). Awardees are chosen by the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Committee, which includes faculty athletics representatives, athletics administrators and a conference commissioner.