{"id":19505,"date":"2013-03-05T23:12:14","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T04:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=19505"},"modified":"2013-03-05T23:12:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T04:12:15","slug":"hansen-kennedy-gluesing-and-smesko-earn-a-sun-postseason-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/03\/hansen-kennedy-gluesing-and-smesko-earn-a-sun-postseason-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Hansen, Kennedy, Gluesing and Smesko Earn A-Sun Postseason Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Karl Smesko won his fourth A-Sun Coach of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winners of four Atlantic Sun regular season championships in the last five seasons, the FGCU women\u2019s basketball team earned a few more honors on Tuesday, March 5. The conference announced their postseason honors, with FGCU taking home several awards.<\/p>\n

Redshirt junior\u00a0Sarah Hansen (McKean, Pa.\/General McLane HS)\u00a0<\/strong>earned Player of the Year honors and her second consecutive first team All-Atlantic Sun selection, redshirt senior\u00a0Brittany Kennedy (Spokane, Wash.\/Lewis and Clark HS\/Oregon State)<\/strong>\u00a0took Defensive Player of the Year and a first team All-Atlantic Sun selection, head coach\u00a0Karl Smesko<\/strong>\u00a0won his fourth A-Sun Coach of the Year and rookie\u00a0Jaime Gluesing (Solon, Ohio\/Solon HS)<\/strong>\u00a0snagged a spot on the A-Sun All-Freshmen team.<\/p>\n

Hansen and Kennedy give FGCU their first A-Sun Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year honors, while Kennedy also gives the program its second unanimous first team All-Atlantic Sun selection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very happy and proud that our players were recognized by the conference,\u201d said Smesko. \u201cI would like to recognize a player myself, Joyce Iamstrong. Joyce has had such a great season. Her play and leadership have made such a difference to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansen, who was also named College Sports Madness A-Sun Player of the Year on Friday,\u00a0does it all for FGCU, as she leads the Eagles in scoring rebounding, blocks and\u00a0 minutes. The A-Sun\u2019s leader in scoring, she became the first student-athlete in FGCU history to earn Capital One Academic All-American status. The 2013 A-Sun Scholar-Athlete of the Year\u00a0has started every game this season and scored in double figures in 28 of 30 games, highlighted by a career-high of 30 points in FGCU\u2019s win over now-No. 22 LSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah has had a tremendous season.\u201d said Smesko. \u201cShe is a great all-around basketball player and after being named A-Sun Women\u2019s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive season, she\u2019s an even better student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy has played in 29 of 30 games for the Green and Blue this season, helping FGCU to the program\u2019s ninth consecutive 21+ win season. One of the 15 players from around the nation on the initial \u201cPlayers Making the Buzz\u201d watch list for the 2013 Nancy Lieberman Award (annually recognizes the top point guard in NCAA Division I women\u2019s basketball), Kennedy, first in the A-Sun in steals per game and second in assists & assist-to-turnover ratio, has anchored the FGCU defense and helped the Eagles hold opponents to 52.5 points (48.4 in league play) during the regular season. Limiting team\u2019s leading scorers well below their averages, Kennedy has recorded a steal in 27 of 30 games this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBK is an amazing point guard.\u201d Smesko said. \u201cShe is a great leader who gets it done on both ends of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gluesing, the A-Sun\u2019s leader in three-point percentage, would rank sixth in the nation if she averaged the NCAA minimum 2.0 treys made per game. (averages 1.5 triples per). The freshman, who has scored in double figures in seven conference games, averaged 8.1 points and shot .490 from the field and .493 from behind the arc in A-Sun play. Gluesing has knocked down a trey in 22 games this season and has multi-threes in 14 contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cJaime has had an excellent freshman season,\u201d said Smesko. \u201cShe is a really good athlete and an excellent shooter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smesko, who was named College Sports Madness A-Sun Coach of the Year on Friday, claimed a regular season conference crown for the fourth time in the program\u2019s existence as his squad amassed a second consecutive perfect 18-0 conference mark earning him A-Sun Coach of the Year honors for the third straight year (fourth in five seasons). The 25-5 Eagles, who own the nation\u2019s third longest winning streak (19 games), behind Baylor, Notre Dame and Delaware, have the most victories of the 13 Division I schools in the state of Florida. FGCU has now won 39 consecutive A-Sun games overall and 36 straight regular season conference contests, the 36 victories ranking as the second-longest streak in the country behind defending national champion Baylor.<\/p>\n

The No. 1 seeded Eagles return to the court on Wednesday, Mar. 6 when they take on No. 8 seed Kennesaw State (7-23, 3-15 A-Sun) at Mercer\u2019s Hawkins Arena in the first round of the 2013 Atlantic Sun Tournament. Tip-off for the third meeting between the teams is set for 12:00 p.m. ET and the game can be seen live on ESPN3.com. The game can also be heard live online at FGCUAthletics.com with David Moulton on the call.<\/p>\n

Player of the Year<\/strong>:\u00a0Sarah Hansen, FGCU<\/em><\/strong>
\nDefensive Player of the Year:\u00a0Brittany Kennedy, FGCU<\/em><\/strong>
\nFreshman of the Year:\u00a0<\/strong>Queen Alford, Jacksonville
\nCoach of the Year:\u00a0Karl Smesko, FGCU<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First Team All-Atlantic Sun<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>
\n*Brittany Kennedy, FGCU
\nSarah Hansen, FGCU<\/em><\/strong>
\nPrecious Bridges, Mercer
\nKendra Grant, Mercer
\nVictoria McGowan, Stetson<\/p>\n

Second Team All-Atlantic Sun<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Queen Alford, Jacksonville
\nTiara Hopper, Northern Kentucky
\nTee\u2019Ara Copney, USC Upstate
\nShanasa Sanders, Stetson
\nSasha Sims, Stetson<\/p>\n

Atlantic Sun Freshmen Team<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>
\n*Queen Alford, Jacksonville
\nJaime Gluesing, FGCU<\/em><\/strong>
\nAlex Banks, Lipscomb
\nRianna Gayheart, Northern Kentucky
\nBrittany Starling, USC Upstate<\/p>\n

*- Unanimous Choice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winners of four Atlantic Sun regular season championships in the last five seasons, the FGCU women\u2019s basketball team earned a few more honors on Tuesday, March 5. The conference announced… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}