Women’s basketball sets new program record with seven All-Cal Pac awards
Women's Basketball Championship Central
VALLEJO, Calif. – Cal Maritime set a new all-time program record when California Pacific Conference Commissioner Don Ott announced the league's end-of-season honor roll at Saturday's Women's Basketball Championship Awards Banquet. Once unveiled, the program earned seven awards, a total that matches the last three seasons combined.
Senior guard Aysia Santos and senior forward Tamana Sharifi earned All-Cal Pac First Team distinction, senior forward Suraya Lloyd and senior guard Emily Newton earned two of the five spots on the league's Second Team, Jessica Huffhines and Alanis Sulivan earned Honorable Mention with the latter also named to the All-Defensive Team.
This is the second All-Cal Pac honor earned by Santos, Lloyd, Newton, and the first for Sharifi, Huffhines and Sulivan.
With Saturday's announcement, Sulivan is the first student-athlete in school history named to the conference's five-member team.
Santos, the team's leading scorer, ranks No. 3 among all Cal Pac players at 16.5 points per game, leads the conference in total points with 313 and field goals made (123). She also ranks No. 4 with her 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio and 52 assists, No. 5 in free throws made (46), free throw (.667) and field goal percentage (.424), and No. 7 from three with 21 baskets.
The Chula Vista, California native collected four Cal Pac Offensive Player of the Week Awards and etched her name in the program's records book just a few weeks ago with an all-time offensive performance.
On a night where she moved to fourth place all-time in program history in scoring, Santos became the first Cal Pac player this season to score 40 or more points in a single game by finishing with 41. She shot 17 of 27 that night with five of those buckets from three.
This came one night after she scored 30 or more points in a game for the first time in her career by ending with that exact number.
That week alone, Santos shot .638 pct. overall, .429 pct. from three and recorded four steals.
During that same week, Sharifi added her name to the records books as well by setting a new all-time program record for the most rebounds collected in a single game when she finished with 28, topping the previous record by two. She is now one of two Keelhaulers in school history — Alicia Porter is the other — to collect 20 or more rebounds in a single game.
In addition to setting a new rebound record, Sharifi scored 22 points to become the second player in the program's recorded history to finish with more than 20 points and 20 rebounds in a single game.
Of her 39 rebounds collected that week, 22 were on the defensive glass.
Sharifi, who hails from Antioch, shot 50 pct. from the floor, recorded 10 assists, six steals and posted the penultimate of her eight double-doubles throughout the regular season.
Sharifi ended her first season as a Keelhauler ranked No. 1 in the Cal Pac in defensive (163) and total rebounds (214), No. 2 in offensive rebounds (51) and rebounds per game (11.3). She enters the Women's Basketball Championship ranked No. 5 in total points (215), field goals (81) and assists-to-turnovers (1:1), No. 6 in steals (31), averaged a double-double witch her 11.3 ppg — the seventh-highest scoring figure in the league — No. 8 with 21 threes, No. 9 in free throws (32), three-point percentage (.273), and No. 10 in field goal percentage (.382).
Lloyd provided a consistent low-post presence for head coach Imhotet Amen-Ra all season long and finished No. 4 in blocked shots with 10 (and lead the league with three in conference games only). Hailing from nearby Vacaville, she collected 82 defensive, 28 offensive and 110 total rebounds, the fifth-, ninth- and sixth-highest totals in the conference.
In addition to her 28 steals, the 11th-highest figure in the Cal Pac, she ranked No. 19 in assists (22), recorded 77 field goals and shot .387 overall; the latter two placed her sixth and ninth, respectively.
Newton enjoyed her most successful season as a Keelhauler by posting career-high numbers across the board. The Cal Pac's No. 1 three-point shooter, she finished with 40 field goals, posted the second-highest shooting clip from distance (.357), finished No. 8 among all league players with 63 total field goals, a .366 overall shooting percentage (12th) and canned 29 shots from the free throw line (12th).
Hailing from Ione, California, she ranked No. 6 in steals (31), No. 7 in points scored (195) and No. 11 in points per game (10.3).
From the start of the season through Cal Maritime's final regular season game, Sulivan developed a reputation for possessing quick hands, keen basketball instincts, an ability to lock down any opponent and neutralize the league's top players.
Last week, Sulivan earned Cal Pac Defensive Player of the Week by averaging 4.5 steals per game, including a game-high four against Pacific Union, and another game-high five two days later against Simpson, a team that entered that matchup in first place with an undefeated league record.
Sulivan enters the postseason tied for third all-time in program history with a single season total of 58 steals — a league-high total for the season — and leads all Cal Pac players with 25 steals in league games only.
Nobody in the conference holds a higher assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6) or collected more assists (81) than the Stockton native.
A legitimate contender for Sixth Player of the Year, Huffhines' skill set and intangibles provided a luxury to Coach Amen-Ra because her versatility created matchup nightmare for opposing teams.
The league's leader from three-point territory (.381) — her percentage was nearly three full points over the next ranked player, her teammate Newton — nailed 24 shots from three, the fifth-highest total in the league.
Not only did she hit the eighth-highest overall total of shots from the line (33), the Sacramento native ranked fourth in three-point percentage (.409), sixth in free throw percentage (.737), seventh in threes (9) and free throws (14), ninth in assists (14) and steals (11) , No. 15 in total points (53) and No. 17 in points per game (8.8) when it mattered the most, in league games only.
The team's awards haul shows why it is enjoying one of the most successful seasons in program history and enters Sunday's 8 p.m. Championship semifinal at PEAC Main Gym, against Northern New Mexico, as the Cal Pac's hottest team riding a program-record nine-game win streak. The winner of this game will face the winner of Sunday's 5 p.m. meeting between Simpson and Stanton in Monday night's 8 p.m. championship game with an automatic berth in the NAIA's National Tournament presented to the winner of that game.