The Big South Conference Tuesday afternoon announced its end-of-season awards, which included RU’s Ashlyn Traylor being named the Big South Freshman of the Year and Traylor’s teammate Vanessa Blake earning all-academic honors.
Traylor was named the freshman of the week seven times this season with five of those awards coming during Big South play. She thus became just the fourth women’s Highlander to win the award and the first since 2005.
Traylor’s Freshman of the Year title won’t be the only hardware she takes home this season as she was also named to the conference’s all-freshman team and was selected second-team all-conference.
During Big South action this season, Traylor achieved top-ten conference totals in points (13.4 ppg), assists (62), steals (39) and free throw shooting (75%). She also led the team in points (368), assists (95) and steals (60) while ranking second in rebounds (170).
Blake was also named to the conference’s all-academic list after a stellar year on and off the court for the Highlanders. In her sophomore season, Blake accumulated a 3.83 GPA as a marketing major and serves as one of the women’s basketball representatives of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) at Radford. On the court Blake was a premier threat for the Highlanders averaging 8.6 ppg and 5.4 rpg while leading the team in offensive rebounds with 80.
The conference Tuesday handed out the following end-of-season awards:
