BOSTON – Vermont men’s soccer standout David Ismail has been named the 2025-26 America East Scholar-Athlete of the Year, as announced by the conference on Thursday afternoon.
Ismail is the fourth Catamount soccer player to win the award, which has been given out every year since 1996. Former teammate Yaniv Bazini won it last year. This also marks the fourth time in the past five seasons a men’s soccer player has won the award. He was chosen from one of eight male student-athletes who were named scholar-athletes in their respective sports this year.
This past year Ismail earned Second-Team All-America honors while leading Vermont to an unbeaten regular season, the longest win streak in the nation and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. He tied for the conference in goals with ten goals while ranking second in the conference with 23 points. He was also named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2025 #AEMSOC Championship as the Catamounts won their second straight crown.
Ismail owns a 3.84 GPA as a business administration major and has appeared in 40 games over the past two seasons at Vermont with 13 goals and seven assists. In 2024 he helped the Catamounts win the NCAA National Championship, earning an assist in the team’s 2-1 overtime victory against Marshall.
Ismail will return to Vermont for a third season as he looks to build upon his performance a season ago and help the Catamounts clinch a third straight conference crown.
The Scholar-Athletes of the Year were voted on by the conference's Student-Athlete Engagement Committee. Each year, the committee elects a Scholar-Athlete in each of the league's 18 championship sports following the fall, winter and spring seasons and from that group, chooses one male and one female as the conference's Scholar-Athletes of the Year. All-time America East Scholar-Athletes of the Year.
2025-26 Scholar-Athletes Fall | Winter | Spring
America East is proud to have one of most comprehensive academic awards programs in the country, which honors over two-thirds of its student-athletes for their success in the classroom, including its sports Scholar-Athletes, All-Academic honorees, Presidential Scholar-Athletes, Elite 18 honorees and Honor Roll/Commissioner’s Honor Roll recipients.
ABOUT AMERICA EAST
Founded in 1979, the America East Conference is an elite NCAA Division I athletic conference that fosters an environment for student-athletes to become champions. Comprised of academically renowned, like-minded member institutions located in the Northeast region of the United States, America East is committed to broad-based excellence and progressive in its approach to supporting its more than 3,500 student-athletes across 18 sponsored sports. For more information, visit www.AmericaEast.com and follow the America East Conference and its social media channels, @AmericaEast.
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