COMPLETE AMERICA EAST RELEASE
West Hartford, Conn. – All five of the University of Hartford women's basketball team's starters picked up hardware on Thursday afternoon at the annual league awards banquet held at the 1877 Club on the University of Hartford campus. Junior Ruthanne Doherty highlighted the group with an All-Conference Second Team honors while classmates Nikkia Smith and Daphne Elliott joined her with All-Conference Third Team honors.
Freshman guard Amber Bepko scored the only other award for on court performance as she was named to the All-Rookie team, the seventh year in the past eight that Hartford has placed someone on the All-Rookie team. Rounding out the awards was junior Alex Hall who earned All-Academic distinction.
Doherty led Hartford in scoring throughout the season with an average of 12.9 points-per-game. She has been a major force behind the Hawks recent eight game win streak that led to a surge through the conference standings and a third seed in this weekend's America East Championship. Doherty has scored in double figures in each of the last nine games, and also leads the team in rebounding with an average of 6.3 rebounds-per-contest, while second on the team with 54 assists and 56 steals.
Smith and Elliott are the only other two Hawks to average in double figures, sporting 10.5 and 10.2 points-per-game, respectively. Smith is the only player on the team to start ever game this season and currently leads the Hawks with a 46.6 percent shooting efforts on 124-of-266. She also leads the team in field goal shooting percentage at 82.7 percent overall (62-of-75).
Elliott has been the Hawks three point shoot threat all season long, currently with 46 three pointers made, which is the ninth most in a single season in school history. She also leads the team defensively with 59 steals and has dished out a team best 84 assists.
Bepko has been a major defensive threat for Hartford, while averaging 5.9 points-per-game for the Hawks. Defensively, Bepko is currently third on the team in steals with 51 total, including tying a school record for steals in a single game with eight in back-to-back games against New Hampshire and Vermont. The rookie also set a career high in scoring during the Hawks eight game win streak with 18 points in the home win over UMBC.
Hall, a management major in the Barney School of Business, sported the third highest GPA among the seven members of the All-Academic team with a combine grade point average of 3.94. On the court, Hall has seen a recent spike in her scoring performance, posting three-straight games in double figures the last three times out. That scoring streak for the Pembroke, N.H. native included 11 three pointers, a major threat for the Hawks heading into the postseason.
Hartford will begin defense of its fifth conference title on Friday night when they take on the #6 seed Binghamton Bearcats in a quarterfinal match-up scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m.
