The champions of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference were shut out when the major all-conference awards were announced Tuesday.
No. 25 Fort Lewis College men’s basketball was given some extra motivation ahead of the opener of the RMAC tournament, as FLC was bypassed in the voting for RMAC player, defensive player and coach of the year. Voting is conducted by the conference’s 15 coaches, and coaches are not allowed to vote for their own players.
The Skyhawks went 22-5 overall and 18-4 in the RMAC during the regular season to claim its sixth regular-season conference title in program history and the second of the last three years under head coach Bob Pietrack. Named to the All-RMAC First Team for FLC was senior forward Rasmus Bach, the preseason player of the year.
The second team featured Fort Lewis senior guard Daniel Hernandez and junior forward Marquel Beasley. FLC senior center Brandon Wilson, the preseason defensive player of the year, and senior guard DJ Miles were both named to the honorable mention list.
Player of the year went to Westminster senior forward Dayon Goodman, who averaged a conference-best 27.7 points per game. He was second in the RMAC in rebounds with 8.5 per game. Coach of the year went to Westminster’s Norm Parrish. The Griffins finished the year 21-5 overall and 17-5 in the RMAC. Westminster finished third in the RMAC standings behind FLC and Regis University (23-5, 17-5 RMAC).
In three years leading FLC, Pietrack has a record of 76-16 overall and 55-11 in conference play. He has been named a HoopDirt.com Division II National Coach of the Week once in each season.
Pietrack earned a $1,000 bonus for winning the RMAC regular-season title and would earn another $1,000 for the conference tournament championship. He can earn $500 if FLC makes the national tournament and an extra $1,000 for each game FLC wins in the national tournament. He would have made an extra $1,000 Tuesday if he was named coach of the year.
The RMAC Defensive Player of the Year award went to Regis forward Dexter Sienko, who led the RMAC in blocked shots with 60. He ranked 15th in the conference in rebounding with an average of 5.7 per game. He was fifth in the RMAC with 1.5 steals per game.
Freshman of the year went to Colorado Mines’ Michael Glen, who was second in the RMAC with 1.5 blocked shots per game. He also averaged 10.5 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
Of FLC’s five players to gain All-RMAC recognition, two were new faces to the team this year. Beasley, a transfer from Iowa Western Junior College, was 23rd in the RMAC in scoring with 13.3 points per game. He also ranked 10th in rebounding with 6.6 per game. He boasted the second-best field-goal percentage in the RMAC at 56.2 percent, 0.5 percent behind Sienko and 0.04 ahead of Goodman.
Miles, a senior transfer from the University of Northern Colorado, was 29th in the RMAC with 12.6 points per game.
Bach led FLC in scoring with 15 points per game. The redshirt senior and winningest player in program history was 12th in the RMAC in scoring. He was 25th in rebounding with five per game, and his average of 3.8 assists per game ranked sixth in the RMAC. He is now a two-time All-RMAC First Team selection. He was second team as a sophomore and was the RMAC Freshman of the Year after the 2014-15 season.
Hernandez, a senior in his second season at FLC, was tied with Beasley for 23rd in the RMAC with 13.3 points per game.
Wilson, who won RMAC Defensive Player of the Week three times this season, ranked third in the RMAC in rebounding with 8.1 per game. He was 11th in the RMAC with 0.9 blocked shots per game and averaged 0.8 steals per game. He also averaged 1.9 assists per game and 10 points.
Vivian Gray left little doubt who the top player in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference was during the 2017-18 women’s basketball season. She won seven player of the week awards during the season and was named the RMAC Freshman of the Year on Tuesday.
Gray, a five-star recruit from Argyle, Texas, was third in the RMAC in scoring with 430 points despite missing four games with an injury and an early-season game for rest. Her 18.7 points per game were an RMAC high. She also ranked sixth in the conference with 7.8 rebounds per game and led the RMAC with two blocked shots per game. She also was fifth in the RMAC with 1.8 steals per game.
Gray’s numbers were better than RMAC Player of the Year Molly Rohrer of CSU-Pueblo, which won the RMAC regular-season crown. Rohrer, a junior, has now won the honor two consecutive years. She was sixth in the RMAC with 14.4 points per game and 23rd with five rebounds per game. She shot 44.3 percent from the field, while Gray shot 47.5 percent, which was third in the conference.
Gray also had 2.8 assists per game to rank 12th in the RMAC, while Rohrer has 1.3 assists per game. Rohrer’s 1.9 blocks per game were second in the RMAC behind Gray.
FLC, which went 20-8 overall and 13-2 in the RMAC to finish sixth in the regular-season standings, had only one other player receive All-RMAC recognition. Senior guard Astrea Reed was named to the All-RMAC First Team.
Reed, who was an All-RMAC Second Team selection as a junior during the 2015-16 season, played in and started all 28 games for FLC a year after she missed an entire season with an injury. She averaged 13.7 points, 2.1 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game.
FLC sophomore Kayla Herrera, who last year won freshman of the year, was left off the second team and honorable mention list despite an average of 9.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.8 steals per game. Herrera was fourth in the RMAC in steals, 13th in assists, 28th in rebounding and 32nd in scoring.
CSU-Pueblo’s Kate Cunningham was named RMAC Defensive Player of the Year for a second consecutive season. She led the RMAC in rebounding with 9.7 per game and was 12th in steals with 1.6 per game. She averaged only 0.1 blocks per game.
Metro State coach Tanya Haave, who led the Roadrunners to a second-place finish in the RMAC at 17-5, was named coach of the year. It is her third RMAC Coach of the Year award and first since she won back-to-back awards in 2011 and 2012.
CSU-Pueblo coach Curtis Loyd, led the ThunderWolves to a 22-6 overall record and 20-2 mark in the RMAC. The team started the season 2-4 before rolling through the conference schedule. Loyd, in his first year coaching CSU-Pueblo, had the tough task of taking over a talented team that won the RMAC a year earlier. When former coach Jim Turgeon departed for the University of Denver, Loyd kept the team together and guided the ThunderWolves to another title, three-games clear of the Roadrunners in the standings.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
