Women's Hoops Wins GNAC Sportsmanship Award
WINTHROP, Mass. – For the second straight year, the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) women's basketball team won the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Institutional Sportsmanship Award, becoming the first school in GNAC women's basketball history to win the award in back-to-back seasons. The award was announced by conference officials Monday afternoon.
This is the third sportsmanship award honor for USJ, which first won it in 2015-2016. The award has been around since 2013-2014. No other GNAC school has won it more than once.
The Blue Jays finished 11-14 on the season, including 3-8 in the GNAC, finishing just one spot short of a playoff spot. The 11 wins is the largest season-by-season turnaround for women's hoops in nearly a decade, when the Blue Jays won 19 games in 2011, after a 4-20 season in 2010. USJ finished 3-22 in 2018-2019.
Saint Joseph lost leading scorer, rebounder and elite perimeter defender in sophomore forward Cheyenne-Mone Smith (Wethersfield, Conn.) to injury at the start of conference play. Head coach Wendy Davis, in her second season, did not let it affect the moral of her team, leading the Blue Jays to three conference wins despite Smith's absence, including a miraculous 72-71 triumph on the road at Lasell University (LU), a game they were down 16 in with less than nine minutes left. Sophomore forward Katelyn Vazquez (Manchester, Conn.) [Pictured] was a welcomed mid-season edition, scoring seven points and grabbing six rebounds per contest in 10 games, including a double-double in the comeback win at Lasell (17 PTS, 13 REB). The Blue Jays are aiming for GNAC playoff contention when they hit the floor again in 2020-2021.
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