MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | The post-season accolades keep coming for New Jersey City University freshman power forward BRIA SMITH(Bayonne, NJ/St. Dominic Academy). On March 17, she landed her second pot of gold this season when the women's basketball standout was selected as the 2014 D3hoops.com Atlantic Region Rookie of the Year.
Smith, who last month was voted the 2013-14 NJAC Women's Basketball Rookie of the Year in voting by the league's 10 head coaches, is the first Gothic Knight women's player to be selected as the D3hoops Region Rookie of the Year since the nation's No. 1 source for Division III basketball expanded its All-Region teams in 2007-08. It's the 13th year D3hoops has selected an All-Region team.
Smith, who captured more than half of the league's Rookie of the Week awards during the regular season—winning in eight of 15 total weeks—was just the third Gothic Knight to be the NJAC Rookie of the Year and the first in 20 seasons, as the 5-foot-8 Biology major set a program record for most NJAC Rookie of the Week awards or overall conference accolades in one season. The NJAC Player of the Week on January 26 (week 8), she was honored as NJAC Rookie of the Week in the first three weeks of the season (November 18 and 25 and December 2) and again in week six on December 23, before adding accolades in four of the final five weeks and three in a row to close the regular season (January 27, week 11; February 10, 17 and 24, weeks 13, 14 and 15).
Smith was also named to the All-Tournament Team at the Salem State Tip-Off Tournament and the D3hoops.com National Team of the Week—one of only six freshmen nationally recognized in 13 weeks—on February 27.
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