Six Pioneers named All-MPSF
Six Pioneer women’s lacrosse players were named All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, the conference announced on Thursday. Additionally, freshman attack Jill Remenapp was named the MPSF Co-Newcomer of the Year.
All-MPSF players honored were redshirt junior attack Kara Secora, junior defensive player Kate Henrich, senior midfielder Melissa Maier, sophomore defensive player Cailie Murphy, junior defensive player Jessica Gring and sophomore attack Jenn Etzel.
“We are happy that these six players were honored by the MPSF, because individual honors like this reflect team success,” said head coach Liza Kelly.
Secora, Henrich and Maier were each named to the All-MPSF First Team, while Murphy, Gring and Etzel were named to the All-MPSF Second Team.
Henrich is leading the nation in caused turnovers with 3.07 per game and now holds a DU single-season record with 46 caused turnovers in a single season. She also leads the MPSF in ground balls and is 4th in draw controls.
Secora leads the conference with five game-winning goals, is 4th in assists and 7th in points.
Men’s basketball players honored at banquet; looks ahead to next year
The Denver men’s basketball team had its annual award banquet on Thursday.
Sophomore forward Chris Udofia won the Floyd M. Theard Jr. Memorial Award as the team’s Most Valuable Player, as well as the Defensive Player of the Year award.
Senior co-captain Brian Stafford and freshman Royce O’Neale shared the Pioneer Award, which is presented to the players who strive to do their best every day and continually make sacrifices to improve the program.
“This banquet gives us an opportunity to thank all the people responsible for helping us build this program,” said head coach Joe Scott. “It also allows us to reflect on past progress and challenges that will make our program stronger going forward.”
Also honored were seniors Justin Coughlin, Travis Hallam, Rob Lewis, Alex Pickert and Tyler Thalken for their contributions in their time as Pioneers.
“It’s a chance to recognize the accomplishments of our seniors, who have dedicated four years to building this program,” said Scott. “They have represented this program on the court, in the classroom and in the community with the utmost character and integrity. We thank them for all they have done and wish them the best as they move into the next chapters in their lives. We know they will always be a part of the Denver Basketball family.”
With six players graduating, the class of 2012 is Scott’s largest to date. He mentioned in an interview Monday it was easy to celebrate a group that help lead the program to its most successful season to date, winning a program-best 22 games in 2011-2012.
“Although we didn’t make the postseason as we wanted to, we accomplished a 22-win season, so that makes it easy to have a good night,” said Scott. “Banquets are mostly for the seniors and with this group, there was a lot to honor, because of all they contributed to the program and all they accomplished.”
While still in off-season mode, Scott addressed looking forward to playing in the Western Athletic Conference next season as the program leaves the Sun Belt Conference. The SBC left the team with a small margin error, according to Scott, which resulted in the team not earning a postseason berth.
“Last season signifies how small a margin of error there is in the NCAA, and how much depends on conference affiliation” said Scott. “Despite our 22 wins, we couldn’t earn an at-large bid in either the NCAA tournament or the NIT, which were our goals. From an RPI perspective, the WAC will help us get to where we want to go, which we look forward to, but what’s impoirtant is we must keep putting ourselves in that position of 20-plus wins.
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