Friday March 3, 2006

2005-06 Women's Basketball Major Awards Announced

AUS

Atlantic University Sport is pleased to announce the 2005-06 Women's Basketball Major Award Winners as selected by the conference's head coaches.

The 2005-06 Most Valuable Player is UNB Varsity Reds fifth-year forward Carolyn Plummer of Fredericton, NB. Plummer, also named a first team all-star this year, led the conference in scoring all season long and finished with an average of 17.0 points per game. She ranked ninth in overall CIS scoring and finished in the top-10 in conference rebounding, field goal percentage and free throw percentage. She is the first Varsity Red named to the Atlantic University Sport Most Valuable Player since 1993-94 when Laura Swift was chosen the as league's top player. No Atlantic University Sport player has ever won the Nan Copp Award as the CIS Outstanding Player of the Year.

The Atlantic conference Rookie of the Year is Saint Mary's Huskies guard Kelsey Daley. Daley led all Atlantic conference rookies in scoring and finished 18th overall in the league with a 9.9 points per game average. Daley also led the conference in 3-point field goal percentage (40.3%). The last Saint Mary's player to win this award was Julie Galipeau in 1999-00, who went on to capture CIS award that year. This past fall, Kelsey, a native of Fredericton, NB, was also named the CIS and Atlantic University Sport female Rookie of the Year in cross country.

Cape Breton CAPERS head coach Fabian McKenzie is the 2005-06 Atlantic University Sport Coach of the Year. McKenzie is in his 7th year as head coach of the Cape Breton program and has been involved with university basketball since 1993. This season, he guided the #5-ranked CAPERS to a first place finish and a regular season record of 16-4. Also selected as the Atlantic conference Coach of the Year in 2001-02, McKenzie inherited a CAPERS team following the 1998-99 season which went 2-18. Since that season, he has guided the CAPERS to an overall regular season record of 84-56, including a stellar record of 68-12 over the past four years.

Fabian McKenzie's university coaching record (regular season):

YEAR G W L 1999-00 20 1 19 2000-01 20 7 13 2001-02 20 8 12 2002-03 20 18 2 2003-04 20 16 4 2004-05 20 18 2 2005-06 20 16 4 OVERALL 140 84 56

The Atlantic conference nominee for the Sylvia Sweeney Award is UNB's Emily Murphy. Murphy, a fifth year player with the Varsity Reds is a 23 year-old, Civil Engineering student from Kanata, Ontario. Emily has been a co-captain of the UNB squad for the past two years and is very much a team player. From the start of her career, she has demonstrated a great ability to distribute the ball and get everyone involved. She is also an outstanding outside shooter, averaging 32% over her five years and over 90% from the free throw line. After winning a gold medal at the 2001 Canada Summer Games as a member of Team Ontario, Murphy came to UNB and immediately stepped into sharing the point guard duties.

Balancing a busy academic schedule with varsity basketball is a challenge, but Emily is also a standout in the classroom, having been named an Academic all-Canadian in three of the past four years and is on pace to attain this distinction once again this season, her final year at UNB. Her involvement in the community has been equally as impressive. Murphy has been a member of UNB's Athlete's Council the past two years and is an active participant in the Fredericton "Run for the Cure", both as a runner and as a fundraiser. Emily is also a favourite with small-ball, elementary, middle school and high school basketball clinic participants that UNB offers throughout the community.

Kathleen Singh, a 6'0" post player for the UNB Varsity Reds women's basketball team, has been selected as this year's Atlantic University Sport nominee for the CIS Tracy MacLeod Award. A native of Fredericton, NB, Kathleen was named the Atlantic conference Rookie of the Year last year, a second team all star and also named to the CIS All-Rookie team. She was also selected as the UNB co-Rookie of the Year.

Kathleen tore her left ACL in the summer before her grade 11 year in high school and sat out her entire grade 11 year. In the spring of 2005, after her stellar freshman year, she tore her right ACL and had reconstructive surgery in June. She worked very hard at rehabilitation and was given the go ahead to start practicing in mid-December. Since then, she has played in 17 games and has very quickly become a starter for UNB and the team's third leading scorer. She is third in the Atlantic University Sport free throw percentage statistics with an average of 81.6% and ranks ninth in blocked shots.

Kathleen has worked hard to get herself back to being a dominant player in the Atlantic University Sport League. Studies say it takes a full year for athletes to recover from this surgery but Kathleen has been very diligent in her rehab and has made unbelievable strides in her comeback after only 6 months.

The Defensive Player of the Year is Memorial's Katherine Quackenbush. In her first year in the league since transferring from the University of Maine, Katherine led the Sea-Hawks in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocked shots, field goal percentage and free throw percentage. Katherine, a native of Halifax, NS, was also named a first team all-star earlier this week.

The 2006 Atlantic University Sport women's basketball championship is being hosted this weekend by the University of Prince Edward Island. Quarterfinal action begins Friday with the Saint Mary's Huskies facing the host UPEI Panthers at 6pm followed by the Dalhousie Tigers and Memorial Sea-Hawks at 8pm. Cape Breton and UNB await the winners in the semifinals, which take place Saturday at 6pm and 8pm. The championship game is slated for Sunday at 1pm, with the winner advancing to the CIS Championship, hosted by the University of New Brunswick, March 10-12.