DOYLESTOWN (PA) – It was a banner day for awards for the Delaware Valley College women's basketball team as senior guard Kim Vennera was named the Freedom Conference Player of the Year, freshman forward Emily Soper took home Rookie of the Year accolades, and junior guard Brittany Battinieri earned a spot on the second team.
Vennera is the first Aggie women's basketball player to be named the conference's Player of the Year since Alisa DiBonaventura took home the award in her 2000-01 All-American season. It is also the third all-conference honor for Vennera as she was a second-team selection in 2008 and a first-team selection in both 2009 and 2010.
Vennera is ranked in the Freedom's top 10 in five separate categories, including scoring where she is fourth with an average of 15.7 points per game. She is also third in steals (3.2 avg), fourth in 3-pointers (1.4 avg), seventh in assists (3.0 avg) and ninth in free throw percentage (.707). She has reached double digits in scoring in 22 of 26 games and has three double-doubles to her credit.
Vennera is currently fourth on the Delaware Valley all-time scoring list with 1,410 points and she is also ranked in the top 10 in six other categories: steals (2nd – 247), rebounding (5th – 666), field goals (5th – 484), assists (6th – 264), free throws (6th – 324) and 3-pointers (10th – 116).
Soper is the second Aggie in the last three years to garner the Rookie of the Year award as Battinieri was tabbed the top freshman in 2007-08. She has started all 26 games this season and is averaging 9.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game. Soper is second in the conference in field goal percentage (.456) while her block and rebounding averages rank fourth and fifth respectively. She had six, double-doubles on the year, including three against conference foes.
Battinieri, who missed all but five games last season with an injury, bounced back and earned a spot on the all-Freedom team for the first time. She is in the conference's top 10 in four categories, including 3-pointers where she averages a Freedom-best 2.7 treys per game. She is also third in 3-point percentage (.311), fifth in assists (3.7 avg) and seventh in scoring (12.3 avg). Battinieri tied a school-record with nine 3-pointers and finished with 42 points (second in school history) in a regular-season loss to eventual Freedom champion DeSales University.
Delaware Valley, which went 11-14 overall and 5-11 in the conference a season ago, won nine of 14 league contests and qualified for the playoffs where it dropped a semifinal contest at DeSales. Earlier today, the Aggies were selected as the top seed for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) South Region Championships and they will put their 17-9 overall record on the line against eighth-seeded Juniata College (15-11) in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, March 3 (7:00 p.m.).
