Women's Basketball Hands Out Team Awards

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Posted: Wednesday, April 13, 2005

EAU CLAIRE - The UW-Eau Claire women's basketball team and head coach Tonja Englund handed out the team awards for the 2004-05 season at Saturday's annual end of the year banquet.

Rachel Becker (Jr.-Gilmanton) earned the team MVP award after a phenomenal year that saw her garner All-Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team and D3hoops.com All-Central Region third team honors.

Becker led the Blugolds in minutes played (30.1 per game), assists (5.11 per game) and steals (2.44 per game) while tying for second in rebounds (5.0 per game) and third in scoring (10.2 per game). In the WIAC Becker ranked first in assists, second in assists/turnover ratio (1.66), fifth in steals, 11th in free throw percentage (.727), 16th in scoring and 18th in rebounding.

Becker was named to the Forester Tip-Off All-Tournament Team at Lake Forest (IL) do in part to a 22 point, nine assists and seven rebound performance in the first round of the tournament against Iowa Wesleyan. Averaging 5.1 assists per game, Becker averaged over one full assist more than the next closest ranked WIAC player in Cassandra Schultz of UW-Stevens Point with 3.74 per game. In one week versus UW-Superior and UW-La Crosse Becker posted double-digit assists totals in each game recording 11 versus the Yellowjackets and 12 against the Eagles.

Katie Murphy (Sr.-La Crosse/Aquinas) earned the Defensive Player of the Year award while also winning one of two Captain awards. Murphy was named the WIAC All-Defensive team for the first time in her Blugold career. She finished tops in the WIAC in assist/turnover ratio (2.21), fourth in assists (3.0), seventh in three-point field goal percentage (.366), seventh in three-point field goals made (1.36), and eighth in steals (2.0).

Joanna Leafblad (Sr.-Eau Claire/Memorial) earned the other Captain award handed out and was also given the Blugold award. Leafblad finished fourth on the team last season with 7.4 points per game while leading the WIAC with 51 three-point field goals made. She was fifth in the WIAC with a 37.5 percent success rate from downtown.

Michelle Burns (Fr.-Eau Claire/North) earned the Rookie of the Year award at Saturday's banquet after a breakout rookie season. She finished second in the conference in offensive rebounds (2.89), tied for third in free-throw percentage (.764), fourth in rebounding (7.1), seventh in defensive rebounds (4.19), eighth in field-goal percentage (.465), 14th in scoring (10.6).

Jenny Charboneau (Fr.-Blaine, MN) won the Most Improved award after seeing limited time in her rookie year. She played in parts of 18 games and tallied 30 points, 29 rebounds, nine steals, and five assists.