Dawson, Pond Win Top Honors

March 6, 2006

Richardson, TX - Southwestern Oklahoma State, winners of the Lone Star Conference North Division women’s basketball title, claimed the greater part of the all-conference awards handed out Monday by the league office.

Senior forward Julie Dawson was chosen as the division’s player-of-the-year while coach Shelly Pond was named by her peers as the LSC North Coach of the-Year. The two were major reasons why SWOSU finished the 2005-06 basketball season with a 16-12 record and earned its first-ever outright LSC North title.

Dawson, a native of Arnett, was selected to the first team North squad for the third consecutive season. She ended the year leading the team in scoring (15.9 ppg), three-pointers made (43), assists (75) and free throw percentage (78.6).

Despite playing her freshman year at Oklahoma State University, Dawson ended her three-year SWOSU career as the school’s fourth all-time leading scorer with 1,385 points.

Pond, who is in her sixth year at SWOSU, has now guided the Bulldogs to identical 16-12 records in each of the last two years. SWOSU, which was picked second in the preseason poll, became the first team other than Northeastern State to win the women’s title since the 2001-02 season.

Joining Dawson on the first-team was teammate Andrea Oldham. Oldham, a junior center from Stigler, provided the Bulldogs with an inside scoring punch and rebounding muscle. She averaged 13.9 points and 7.3 rebounds and was named the division’s “Newcomer-of-the-Year.” She led the team with nine “double-doubles” in which she had double figure points and rebounds in the same game.

SWOSU’s Kayla Horn narrowly missed out on first-team and was the highest vote getter for the second-team squad. Horn, a junior forward from Hydro, ended the year averaging 12.4 points and 7.4 rebounds a game. Horn’s best games were at the end of the year in which she averaged 18.6 points in the final five games.

Both Horn and Oldham are expected to return next year in which the Bulldogs will be expected to again challenge for the LSC North supremacy.