Washington University Has Eight Named Conference Athlete of the Week

St. Louis, Mo., March 16, 2011 – Washington University in St. Louis had eight student-athletes earn University Athletic Association (UAA) Athlete of the Week honors, as announced by the Association.

Senior guard Alex Hoover of the No. 12 ranked women’s basketball team, freshman Shannon Howell, junior Erica Jackey, senior Jessica Londeree and junior Elizabeth Phillips of the women’s indoor track and field team, junior Dan Davis and senior Ben Harmon of the men’s indoor track and field team and sophomore Kareem Farah of the No. 5 ranked men’s tennis team each earned the accolade.

Hoover led the Bears to a pair of wins and a third-consecutive trip to the NCAA Division III Final Four last week. She averaged 11.5 points, six rebounds and five assists per game as the Bears defeated top-ranked and previously unbeaten Thomas More College 72-53 on Friday night, and UAA champion University of Chicago, 63-58, in the sectional final on Saturday. Hoover’s 10 assists last week moved her into first place in school history with 430 in her career.

The women’s distance medley team of Londeree, Howell, Phillips and Jackey captured second place at the 2011 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships last Friday in Columbus, Ohio. The team finished with a time of 11:49.10, just 1.14 seconds behind the national champion squad from Middlebury College, and was just barely off the school-record breaking mark of 11:48.98 from a week before. The second-place finish was the best in the event in school history.

Davis and Harmon earned All-America finishes to help the men’s indoor track and field team to an eighth-place finish at the 2011 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships last weekend. Davis was the runner-up in the 55-meter hurdles with a school-record time of 7.47, while Harmon finished fourth in the pentathlon with a score of 3,652 and seventh in the long jump with a distance of 7.00 meters. His best marks in the pentathlon came in the long jump (6.93 meters) and the high jump (1.94 meters). The eighth-place team finish marked the best in school history for the Bears.

Farah posted a combined 4-0 record in singles and doubles in 5-4 victories over NCAA Division II 19th-ranked Northwest Missouri State University and NAIA 10th-ranked Graceland University. He posted two straight-set victories at fifth singles and partnered with junior Cameron Chiang to win both matches at second doubles. Farah clinched the match in the win over Graceland with a 6-3, 6-0 singles victory.