Juneau soccer alum gets All-American nod

In 2013, Jackson Lehnhart capped his high school soccer career with the Gatorade Alaska Player of the Year Award. Now, the 5 foot, 10 inch Juneau-Douglas High School alum is moving on from the NCAA ranks in similar, if not more impressive, fashion.

Last week, Lehnhart was named third team All-American for Division III soccer by D3soccer.com. Thirty-three players from across the country were named to the team as chosen by D3soccer.com staff, coaches and sports information directors out of a field of almost 500 nominations.

As a senior at Amherst College in Massuchusetts, Lehnhart tallied five goals and three assists for the defending New England Small College Atheltic Conference champions. In 2015, Lehnhart played a vital piece in helping Amherst win its first national championship — scoring the game-tying goal against national runner-up Loras. Over the last four seasons in which Lehnhart has played for Amherst, the team has sported a ridiculous 49-4-12 record.

The Juneau Empire reached Jackson in between classes to discuss his recent All-American nod, winning a national championship as a junior, and interning at SeatGeek.

Juneau Empire: How did you first learn about being named to the All-American team and what was that feeling like?

Lehnhart: I got an e-mail from my coach that myself and another kid on the team … made it. It didn’t really hit at first, it was pretty cool to see that, but it wasn’t until a day or two later that I was talking to my dad that I really realized the magnitude of how cool this is, how exciting this is, and how great of an honor this is.

JE: What did your dad say that helped you realize how special it was?

Lehnhart: We just talked about my progression as a player and the years that I’ve played soccer and how great of an experience it is and as a culmination of all this work it’s pretty cool to go out with something like this, to be honored like this is awesome.

JE: When you started your college career at Amherst, the team was coming off an undefeated season. And now in your four years with the team, you’ve lost only four times. What’s it like to be part of a program like that with a strong winning tradition?

Lehnhart: Coming in it was definitely an eye opener just the intensity that everyone put forth and I think that’s a lot of the reason we’ve been so successful. Our coach expects nothing less than 100 percent every single day. It was such an eye opener to show up the first day and just get knocked to my butt by these upperclassmen because they were going so hard and it was almost like I was merging on to a freeway — like you had to either jump onboard with this beast or you were going to get hit. That’s kind of what needs to happen in order to have a successful program is to not only have that intensity but also to have people that are fully-engaged, fully-committed, and that’s what I’ve seen here so far through my four years. Coach Serpone is so good at getting people to invest themselves in the program and that’s why he’s seen so much success.

JE: You were named a captain this season – what do you think the coaches saw in you that made them name you one of the captains?

Lehnhart: I think it’s a little bit of what I talked about at the beginning – it’s being fully committed to the program and I think from day one, myself and a lot of the other seniors were completely bought in, we loved the program, we loved the fire that we brought, and especially early on when a lot of us weren’t getting a lot of playing time it was doing the small things that make a big difference: having energy on the bench, helping clean things up, just doing everything we can to make the season go smoothly. I think my coach recognized that and I think he also recognized the preparation that I’ve put in for the last couple of years — just coming in one of the fittest persons on the team and not relaxing at any point during our season to make sure at the end of it, you’ve done everything you could, and however it ends up, is how it ends up.

JE: How did you adapt your game from playing a forward or striker in high school to playing a center back in college?

Lehnhart: It was definitely something I had to get used to and it originally stemmed from the drive to get on the field and contribute. Once you get into that position, especially on a team like Amherst where we give up so few goals and it’s — I mean only the year before I got here they gave up three goals [the entire season] which is incredible — but the expectation is that you do not get scored on. … We’ll tie someone 0-0 but we’re not going to get scored on and so that’s a mentality I had to build in myself and I think it didn’t take long for that to happen. It’s just taking ownership over your role and making sure you’re doing it to the best of your ability. And so pretty quickly I started to enjoy that where it was just a determination thing that I wasn’t going to let someone beat me or we weren’t going to let someone beat us and to make sure we had 0 in the back was always our primary goal.

JE: During your junior season, Amherst makes a run to the national championship and wins – can you describe what an amazing journey that must have been?

Lehnhart: Oh man, so, I mean it was just so surreal because it was so far from where I expected I would be. I came in [to my junior season] with some hope to get playing time and I ended up becoming a much bigger piece to the puzzle than I thought I would and to just ride that wave and to be such a part of it was just incredible. I think what makes it the most surreal was we’ve been so close to breaking down this barrier of getting to the final four in the first two years, that I was here and to see people that have been so invested get crushed by that was really hard, and so to be able to do it and not only do it, (but to do it) with all of them there — that was the coolest part, to see the excitement in the alumni’s faces when we did it because it was just as much as their’s as it was our’s because they put so much into this program as well.

JE: What was the story arc of this season?

Lehnhart: It was an incredibly successful season. We finished the season at the top of the league, we won the [New England Small College Athletic Conference] tournament which is great because we’ve really only done that once (before) in my four years here. … What I’m most proud about is not how far we got, but the resilience that we had. We probably came back from being down a goal four or five times including once where we were down two goals and a player. There were a lot of moments where it was just like, ‘We are expected to lose here,’ and yet we continued to fight and continued to fight and it ended up sending us pretty far.

JE: What will you miss most about your time at Amherst?

Lehnhart: There is so much to point to. It’s just like, the constant presence of a family. I think we’ve done such a great job of fostering a team dynamic in which everyone is included, everyone feels like they are a part of something. To have 30 guys around you at all times is — even going from the season to the offseason — that’s a hard thing to take because you no longer see them every day. … The camaraderie is so much fun that I’ll miss that. The nice thing is our alums stay so connected that I’m … sure I’ll be around a bunch of them to still have that sense of camaraderie as well.

JE: What did you study at Amherst, and what do you hope to do after you graduate?

Lehnhart: I’m an economics major but what I’m hoping to go into — I did an internship in business development for a tech ticketing company in New York called SeatGeek and I really enjoyed that. So I’m hoping to potentially find a role there or find another role that’s in that same realm of business development, analytical, and also potentially in sports as well. [Sports] has been a big part of my life so it’s hard to see it disappear.

JE: What advice do you have for younger players who want to make that jump to college coming from someone who has done that and succeeded?

Lehnhart: A lot of it comes down to effort. It’s very easy to coast your way through high school and rely on skill and not really take things super seriously. It’s really important to take advantage of the people you have around you, the coaches, the resources, to get better. I was extremely lucky as a kid to be surrounded by the coaches I was and the facilities. Not everyone gets that so if you can take advantage of that and make yourself better and commit yourself, people will recognize that and then you’ll get a chance. The recruiting process is really hard so you really have to have this passion, the drive to make it happen.

JE: What can you say about the instrumental role your dad has played in your soccer career?

Lehnhart: He’s probably the one person I need to thank most for all of this. He’s coached all through my life and in that sense he’s almost responsible for the skills I’ve developed, but also the support he’s given me. Another piece to the national championship that made it so surreal was the fact that he was there and he missed the semi-final game because he got snowed in and flew in the morning of the championship game, got there 10 minutes before the game, and was there to see me score the tying goal. He’s been there for so many years and I can always go to him, whether that’s getting here my freshman year and not seeing the playing time I wanted and being there to support me and make sure I was headed in the right direction in terms of how to approach that and what to work on that sort of thing. It’s an incredible thing to have someone on my side, just to have someone in my corner that has the knowledge of soccer and the support of a father to really help me progress as a player.

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• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.

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