Mid-American Conference Announces Top Women's Basketball Honors
March 9, 2004
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CLEVELAND - Western Michigan's Casey Rost and Miami's Maria Fantanarosa have earned the Mid-American Conference's top honors for the 2003-04 women's basketball season, the league announced Tuesday evening at the conference's annual Tournament Banquet at the Hyatt Regency at the Arcade. Rost has been named the league's Player of the Year, while Fantanarosa has garnered the league's Coach of the Year award for the first time in her career. In addition, Bowling Green's Ali Mann has been tabbed as the MAC Freshman of the Year. The league's 13 head coaches and members of the MAC News Media Association conducted voting.
The conference's other two specialty awards, the Defensive Player of the Year and the Sixth Man award, are voted on by the league's head coaches. Capturing the Defensive Player of the Year honor is Bowling Green's Lindsay Austin, while Eastern Michigan's Sarah VanMetre is tabbed the winner of the Sixth Man award.
Rost is the first-ever Bronco to win the award that is presented to the league's top player. The junior guard from St. Johns, Mich., was in the top two in scoring in the MAC for the majority of the season and has led the conference since the middle of January. Rost was averaging a league-best 19.8 ppg before succumbing to a season-ending knee injury on Feb. 18. In addition, the two-time first-team all-conference selection also averaged 4.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.7 steals per game. Rost dropped in a career-high 40 points against UMKC back in November, marking only the ninth individual game of 40 or more points in league history. Twelve of her 24 games she played in resulted in outings of 20 or more points, including three of the five highest scoring performances in the MAC this season. Rost also tallied a pair of 32-point games during conference play, part of a 20.8 points per-game average in league action. She also guided the Broncos to a school-record 7-0 start in MAC play.
A year after claiming the school's first-ever MAC East Division crown, Miami's Fantanarosa equaled the feat again this year, winning the division by two games. Moreover, the sixth-year head coach directed the RedHawks to their first MAC regular-season championship in 14 years. Miami put together a conference-long 12-game winning streak, the league's longest win streak in three seasons. The 20 wins that Miami produced during the regular season were the most by the school since it won 23 games during the 1989-90 season, which coincidentally was the last time the team grabbed the conference's regular season title.
Bowling Green's Mann is the first Falcon to win the league's Freshman of the Year since Sara Puthoff did it in 1995, and the fourth overall BG player to capture the honor. The Chelsea, Mich., native finished the regular season as the MAC's top freshman scorer at 12.8 ppg and the top rebounder at 7.9 rpg. Those per-game averages were tied for tenth and sixth, respectively, in the conference. In addition, she produced seven double-doubles, also tops among first-year players. Ten times Mann led the Falcons in scoring, including a career-high 28 points against Ball State, while also pacing the team in rebounding 14 times.
In its eighth year of existence, the MAC's Defensive Player of the Year goes to Bowling Green's Austin. The Cincinnati, Ohio, native finished third in the conference at the end of the regular season in steals per game (2.81). That number increased to 3.12 in league-only contests. Two of Austin's steal totals in games were among the top seven in Division I during the regular season, including a 10-steal outing against Miami that is tied for the highest total in the nation this year. That total tied a league record for most steals in a conference game, while it also tied for the fourth-highest output for any game in MAC history.
Eastern Michigan's VanMetre is the winner of the Sixth Man Award, which last year awarded for the first time to Miami's Kim Lancaster. The freshman from Noblesville, Ind., came off the bench to average 25.5 minutes per game and was the team's third-leading scorer at 11.5 ppg. That averaged also ranked 22nd in the conference. In addition, VanMetre was second on the team and 12th in the MAC in rebounding (7.0). In league-only games, the MAC all-freshman team selection dropped in 10.4 ppg. Five times she led the team in scoring, highlighted by a 25-point performance against Michigan State.
Specialty Award Top-Three Finishers
Player of the Year
Casey Rost, Western Michigan 33
Colleen Day, Miami 20
Kate Endress, Ball State 9
Coach of the Year
Maria Fantanarosa, Miami 34
Curt Miller, Bowling Green 17
Suzy Merchant, Eastern Michigan 15
Freshman of the Year
Ali Mann, Bowling Green 24
Amanda Jackson, Miami 14
Carrie Moore, Western Michigan 12
Defensive Player of the Year
(voted on by the MAC head coaches)
Lindsay Austin, Bowling Green
Sixth Man award
(voted on by the MAC head coaches)
Sarah VanMetre, Eastern Michigan
A total of 68 ballots were received from members of the MAC News Media Association and the MAC's head coaches.
