Jackie Stiles of Southwest Missouri State University, who set a new NCAA season scoring record, averaging 30.3 points per game while helping lead the Lady Bears to a berth in the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, has been named the top woman collegiate athlete in her sport for the 2000-2001 collegiate year, according to the results of national balloting among NCAA-member schools.
As the Honda Award winner for basketball, Stiles, a 5-8, senior, guard from Claflin, Kan. (Claflin H.S.), scored 30 points vs. Creighton on March 1 to become the leading scorer in NCAA women's basketball history (3,398 points). Among six games in which she scored 40 points or more this season, Stiles had a single-game high of 49 points. She averaged 56.6 percent from the field and also contributed 60 assists and 40 steals. Named Missouri Valley Conference player of the week seven times this season, she was accorded the honor a league-record 18 times during her career. Stiles is the first player in MVC history to earn player of the year honors in four straight seasons. She was also named to the MVC scholar-athlete first team.
Stiles will be joined later this year by other women collegiate athletes voted as the most outstanding in the sports of golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, tennis, and track & field, plus previously announced winners Greichaly Cepero (volleyball) of Nebraska, Marina DiGiacomo (field hockey) of Old Dominion, Kara Grgas-Wheeler (cross country) of Colorado, Meredith Florance (soccer) of North Carolina and Misty Hyman (swimming and diving) of Stanford. All Honda Award winners are automatically nominated for Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year honors.
Previous Honda Award winners for basketball include Tennessee's Chamique Holdsclaw (1998), Connecticut's Jennifer Rizzotti (1996) and Rebecca Lobo (1995), USC's Cheryl Miller (1984), Old Dominion's Nancy Lieberman (1979), UCLA's Ann Meyers (1978), and the inaugural winner, Delta State's Lucy Harris (1977). All were also named Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year.
The Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year will be determined by separate balloting involving all NCAA-member institutions. The announcement of the winner and presentation of the Honda-Broderick Cup will be made at the 25th annual Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year banquet, June 11 at Salt Lake City, Utah, site of the 2001 National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Convention.
American Honda Motor Co., Inc. sponsors the awards program.
