Roy Boateng (UCD Athletics/Courtesy photo)

After a standout college career that included back-to-back Big West Conference Defensive Player of the Year awards, UC Davis men’s soccer senior center back Roy Boateng was selected No. 16 overall in the MLS SuperDraft by the New York Red Bulls on Friday in Chicago.

Trading $100,000 in allocation money for the pick, as well as No. 25 overall, the Red Bulls moved up to select Boateng, who played in 82 games for the Aggies while scoring six goals.

On a media conference call following the draft, Red Bulls sporting director Denis Hamlett said that people could one day look at the trade and say “it is the best $100,000 we ever spent.”

Boateng had participated recently in the MLS Combine in Orlando and was projected by most prognosticators as a mid-second round pick.

“When we watched him in the first game (at the combine) and again from the information we had throughout the year, we felt that, physically, he was a specimen, he was different,” Hamlett said on the conference call. “You know how we like to play. We need guys that can put out fires in the back as center backs.

“When we really sat down with him, he really impressed us in terms of his knowledge, he’s a good human being.” Hamlett added. “Just his clarity and his understanding of who he is as a football player and what he really prides himself on. He said, ‘I like to defend, that’s what I enjoy doing.’ When you hear those types of things coming out of someone and you see his track record and you speak to people — this player has all the qualities that in system he can learn and we can develop him and he can be a good player for us down the road.”

Boateng becomes the third UCD player drafted by an MLS team, following Ryan Shaw, who went No. 34 overall to the LA Galaxy in 2005, and Quincy Amirikwa, who was selected No. 32 overall by the San Jose Earthquakes in 2009.

While Shaw failed to make an impact in MLS, Amarikwa is likely to enter his 11th year in the league, where he has played in 200 games for five different clubs and scored 25 goals.

The New York Red Bulls are coming off a season in which they set an MLS record for points in a season and won their third Supporters’ Shield in the past six seasons.