- March 7th, 2007, 7:42 pm
#66530
DILL, JONES, DARDEN, LOY GARNER BIG SOUTH’S TOP WOMEN’S BASKETBALL AWARDS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Coastal Carolina senior guard Alisha Dill and High Point head coach Tooey Loy have been voted as the 2006-07 Big South Conference Women’s Basketball Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively, by the League’s head coaches, sports information directors and media panel, it was announced this evening at the Women’s Basketball Awards Banquet held at the Crest Center in Asheville, N.C. The voting panel voted UNC Asheville guard Kyla Jones Freshman of the Year and Radford junior center Kelli Darden as the League’s Women’s Basketball Defensive Player of the Year. Leslie Cook of High Point was voted Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the SIDs for the second-straight year.
Dill currently ranks fourth in Division I in scoring with 22.5 points per game. She has posted a League-high 19 games with at least 20 points, with three games of 30 or more. Dill has put in 631 points this season, and is just 18 points shy of joining the Big South single-season scoring top five. The guard scored her 1,000th career point this season and is currently No. 19 all-time in the League’s annuals with 1,321 points. A Second team All-Big South selection a year ago, Dill has was named Player of the Week four times this season. She notched 13 first-place votes and 217 points to finish ahead of Liberty’s Megan Frazee, who posted five top votes and 187 points.
Loy coached his Panthers to High Point’s first-ever Regular-Season championship during the 2006-07 women’s basketball season. The Panthers finished as the No. 1 seed in the 2007 Advance Auto Parts Big South Women’s Basketball Championship outright with an 11-3 mark in Big South play. The honor marks his second Coach of the Year nod of his career, as High Point was the first team to sweep Liberty in the regular-season since 1997, and the only team in the Conference to go undefeated in Big South games at home this season. Loy received 10 first place votes and 55 points ahead of Radford’s Jeri Porter who posted nine first-place votes and 41 points.
Jones notched Freshman of the Year honors for the Bulldogs after finishing the season with 6.4 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. She earned Big South Freshman of the Week honors four times this season. The guard notched one double-double this season and posted 10 boards in Asheville’s road win at ACC foe Wake Forest. Jones finished with 11 top bids and 91 total points.
Darden received Defensive Player of the Year honors after posting a League-high 2.82 blocked shots per game to rank No. 13 in the country. She has posted 79 rejections this season and is currently tied for third on the Big South’s single season list. She has 189 blocked shots in her career to rank No. 4 all-time in the Big South. Darden received 19 first-place votes and 62 total points.
Liberty’s Megan Frazee and High Point’s Candyce Sellars joined Dill on the All-Conference first team, while Reba Ross of Birmingham-Southern and Darden round out the list.
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