Alyssa Heintschel

Classroom

Alyssa Heintschel epitomizes the term student-athlete, maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA as a chemistry, pre-med major. Following her junior season in 2016, she was named to the Academic All-America Third Team by CoSIDA and the Scholar All-America Second Team by the NSCAA. She is a two-time member of the Academic All-MAC Team and a two-time MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete selection. Rewarding the best of the best in academic and athletic achievement, the Distinguished Scholar-Athlete list honors roughly the top 15 percent of MAC women’s soccer players. She has been on the dean’s list in each of her semesters at Ball State. She was selected as the 2015 recipient of Ball State’s Dr. Park Wiseman Scholarship for academic excellence in chemistry.

Heintschel will graduate in the spring and then hopes to attend medical school to specialize in pediatric internal medicine. With that goal in mind, she has spent time outside the classroom shadowing physicians and surgeons on the job.

Character

Described as a “true leader who inspires other people” by Ball State Head Coach Craig Roberts, Heintschel has been voted as a captain by her teammates since her sophomore year. She often puts in extra work before or after practice, bettering her own game or helping her teammates develop. Heintschel has served as a representative of the soccer program on Ball State’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee since the spring of her freshman year. SAAC seeks to ensure and enhance the student-athlete experience through promoting opportunities within the university, athletics department and outside community, while providing a facet to serve and protect the interests and image of the student-athlete. She has also balanced academics and athletics while holding jobs in Muncie during the school year and at home during the summer. Coach Roberts says of Heintschel, “My biggest concern for her is that she spreads herself too thin, but she handles it. The fact that she’s going into pre-med and performing at a high level athletically at the same time—she’s definitely unique.”

Community

Heintschel has been actively involved on the Ball State campus, in the Muncie, Ind., community and in her hometown of Oregon, Ohio, throughout her college years. She helps others with the knowledge she has gained, having served as a teaching assistant for an organic chemistry class at Ball State and as a math and science tutor in her hometown at Eagle Learning Center, a credit recovery institution to assist students who cannot complete their coursework in a traditional high school.

She also shares her knowledge of the game she loves, serving as a volunteer coach for Ball State soccer camps where she instructs youth who aspire to play collegiately like she does. In preparation for her future career, she volunteers in the Emergency Department at Ball Memorial Hospital, assisting physicians in a variety of ways and ensuring patients are cared for. Heintschel also volunteers alongside her Ball State soccer teammates each December for Secret Families of Muncie, wrapping and delivering gifts and dinners to underprivileged families in the community.

Competition

Heintschel has been named the All-MAC First Team goalkeeper in each of the past two seasons, helping Ball State win the league regular season championship each year. She was also selected to the NSCAA All-Region First Team last year as a junior after posting a 10-2-3 record, including an 8-1-1 mark in conference play. She led the MAC during league action in goals-against average (0.58), shutouts (6) and shutout average (0.6) for a Cardinals team that reached an all-time high of No. 40 in the NCAA RPI. Her full-season goals-against average has rated among the top 50 nationally in each of the past two seasons: 23rd in 2015 (0.63) and 44th in 2016 (0.82). Ball State posted a conference record of 19-2-1 over those two years with Heintschel starting 21 of the 22 contests. Last year, the Cardinals became only the second team in MAC history to win the outright regular season championship in back-to-back years. Heintschel ranks first in school history in career goals-against average (0.77), second in solo shutouts (18) and third in wins (30). Her career goals-against average ranks 11th among all active Division I goalkeepers.