EDINBORO — Meghan Kelly knows how to put a cap on a career.

The Mars graduate and four-year starter at goalkeeper for the Edinboro University women’s soccer team has been named first team Capital One National Academic All-America Division II for her efforts this season.

“I’m really happy about this,” Kelly said. “It was a goal of mine going into the season, but I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.”

An Early Childhood and Special Education major, Kelly is carrying a 4.0 grade point average and will graduate this spring. She is considering graduate school.

On the soccer field, she owns school records of 41 career wins and 21 shutouts, ranking 10th all-time in the PSAC in the latter category. Kelly also owns the school record of 6,497 minutes played and ranks second with 300 career saves.

In addition, Kelly holds three of Edinboro’s top six all-time goals-against averages. Her lowest was 0.90 in 2012 and her career GAA is 1.03. She owns Edinboro’s single-season marks of 12 wins and seven shutouts in a season.

“Meghan is just an exceptional kid,” Edinboro coach Gary Kagiavas said. “She’s been good for us in her previous three seasons, but she was unbelievable this year.

“She decided to step up her game for her final year and that work paid off.”

Kelly helped Edinboro achieve four consecutive appearances in the PSAC Tournament and three trips to the NCAA playoffs.

She was a four-year starter in high school and in college.

“I wasn’t expecting to play here my freshman year,” Kelly admitted. “But our senior goalkeeper, Kate Stukbauer, got a concussion and I was given an opportunity to show what I could do.”

Kelly never left the lineup, posting a 7-6 record and 1.41 GAA that freshman season. This past year, she played in all 19 of the Fighting Scots’ games.

“Her presence in there is so dynamic,” Kagiavas said. “She has this ‘You’re not gonna beat me’ bravado in the net. Meghan is extremely competitive and always believes she’s going to get the ball.

“Her technique is very sound. She can play the ball with her feet and gives a lot of confidence to our defenders.

“The entire team believed she could bail us out of any situation,” the coach added.

Kelly was able to maintain her 4.0 GPA despite a rigorous soccer schedule that included six overnight trips in mid-weeks.

Two Edinboro teammates take the same classes as her and Kelly said they leaned on each other.

“This year was definitely a challenging travel schedule,” Kelly said. “All of my professors were really cool about understanding the situation. The three of us in the same class, we worked together and made sure we were all getting everything done on time.”

Kagiavas marveled at the academic effort.

“We wouldn’t get back in town until midnight at times and they had morning class the next day,” he said. “Plus, there are so many demands on student-athletes’ time these days.

“They have mandatory community service, meetings they have to attend, Meghan had to read to kids at an elementary school here in Edinboro ... I don’t know how they do it.”

Kelly plans to coach soccer in the future. She already does work for Happy Feet, a national youth soccer organization that teaches the game, and travels to day care and community centers to teach soccer to kids ages 2-7.

“Kagiavas paid his departing goaltender the ultimate compliment.

“We had four goalies in our program this year,” he said. “I hope a lot of Meghan Kelly runs off on the younger ones.”