LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – Senior women’s basketball forward
Lauren Beckley was named the PSAC Eastern Division Player of the Year for the second consecutive season and honored with her third overall PSAC player of the year award on Tuesday morning by conference officials while both Beckley and junior forward
Kasey Gardner were named to the All-PSAC Eastern Division First Team.
Beckley is the first player in Shippensburg history to win three PSAC Player of the Year awards and has surpassed Ashley Totedo Swanson’s back-to-back Western Division awards in 1998 and 1999. Gardner’s feat marked the first time since the 2006-07 campaign that the Lady Raiders had multiple players receive first team awards. In her freshman year, Beckley earned her first of four career first-team awards as the PSAC Western Division Rookie of the Year, joining senior Shanna Oaddams.
The PSAC’s all-time leading scorer, Beckley was honored four times this season as a PSAC Eastern Division Player of the Week and finished the regular season as the conference’s leading scorer at 21.8 points per game. She ranked sixth in the nation in points per game and finished just 16 points short of Tracy Spencer’s season scoring record.
In her career, Beckley scored 2,407 points through 113 career games and ranks 15th all time in Division II. She is the only player in league history to win a conference player of the year award in both divisions and one of just five players in the league with 2,000 or more career points and 1,000 or more career rebounds. Her final career rebounding total was 1,151, an average of 10.2 per game that ranks sixth in PSAC history.
In addition to her school record for points, Beckley established SU career marks with 263 three-pointers (fourth-best in PSAC history), 532 free throws (third-best in PSAC history) and a career free throw percentage of 84.8 (second-best in PSAC history).
Beckley scored in double digits for 108 of her 113 career games, just shy of Ashley Totedo's school record. Beckley finished her career with two 40-point games, including a school record 47 against Lock Haven in 2008, along with 19 games of 30 or more points and 64 games of 20 or more points.
Gardner’s offensive prowess combined with Beckley to form one of the most dangerous scoring tandems in Division II. She scored 566 points in 30 games this season, an average of 18.9 points per game, while shooting 46 percent from the field and making 51 three-pointers. Her scoring performance ranks 10th in school history for the most points in a season and currently ranks third in the conference. She led the team in field-goal percentage (.458) and three-point percentage (.359).
Her performance was instrumental in more ways than just scoring. Gardner played the most minutes of any player this season (1,102) while leading the team in offensive rebounds (61) and steals (59) while also ranking second on the team with 87 assists. Overall, she averaged 6.9 rebounds per game, the second-best on the team.
Bloomsburg’s Dana Wieller was named the PSAC Eastern Division Freshman of the Year while Millersville head coach Mary Fleig was honored after guiding the Marauders to the division title and the No. 6 seed in the upcoming regional tournament.
The remainder of the first team included Kutztown’s Melissa McQuade, Millersville’s Raquel Green and Cheyney’s Angel Stephens. The Marauders had two more players selected to the second team to lead the PSAC East with three total selections.