Women's Basketball

Women's Basketball Announces Major Awards and All-Ivy After Another Accomplished Season

PRINCETON, N.J. - Following another successful Ivy League women's basketball season that saw the League climb as high as seventh in conference RPI ranking, the 2020 All-Ivy and major awards were announced with the top awards going to No. 22 Princeton and Penn. 

Bella Alarie was named the Ivy League Player of the Year, and Princeton coach Carla Berube earned the nod as the Coach of the Year. Penn’s Eleah Parker and Kayla Padilla took the Defensive Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards to round out the major conference honors.
 
Alarie, a senior forward from Bethesda, Md., becomes just the third student-athlete in League history to win Player of the Year honors for three consecutive years, joining Harvard's Allison Feaster and Penn's Diana Caramanico. Alarie led the league in scoring with an average of 17.5 points per game and ranked second in the league in both rebounding (8.6 rpg) and blocked shots (2.3 bpg). She helped lead the Tigers to a 26-1 record that included a 22-game winning streak to end the season. She scored a season high 28 points on Feb. 22 against Dartmouth, and she made 11 of 21 field goal attempts in that game. She also grabbed 12 boards against the Big Green, and against Yale on Feb. 29 she notched her 40th career double-double with 19 points and 13 boards. Alarie becomes the first player in Princeton women's basketball histroy and the sevnth player in League history to earn First-Team All-Ivy recognition in each of her four seasons. 

Berube helped lead the Tigers to the league crown - and an undefeated record in Ivy play - in her first season at the helm of the program. Her team’s only loss of the season came early in the year in overtime at Iowa, and after that point the Tigers were as close to unstoppable as possible. From Nov. 24 onward, the Tigers’ closest games were 12 point victories - against Monmouth and at Marist on Dec. 7.  The Tigers ran roughshod over the Ivy League, winning their 14 games by an average of nearly 26 points. As the Ivy League champions, the Tigers will receive the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Parker, a junior center from Charlotte, N.C., becomes the fifth Ivy League student-athlete to earn the League's top defensive honor in back-to-back seasons. She led the Ivy League in blocked shots by a wide margin, swatting away 72 opposing attempts at the basket, nearly 20 more than anyone else Parker rejected 41 of those 72 shots in Ivy play. She also averaged 12 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, and she finished third in the Ivy League in rebounding.
 
Padilla, a freshman guard from Torrance, Calif. - had an outstanding rookie season for the Quakers. She finished second in the Ivy League in scoring, netting 17.4 points per game, and she earned the League’s Rookie of the Week honor a league-leading six times. She had a season best 27 points in a loss to Princeton on Jan. 11 when she made 10 of 14 field goal attempts including a 4-for-7 performance from long range. Padilla is the sixth Penn freshman to earn the honor. 
  
Joining Alarie, Padilla, and Parker on the All-Ivy First Team were Princeton’s Carlie Littlefield and Roxy Barahman of Yale. Littlefield, a junior guard from Waukee Iowa, averaged 13.7 points per game for the Tigers and she dished out 80 assists and picked up 50 steals. Barahman, a senior guard from Calabasas, Calif., averaged 17.1 points per game,and she had 95 assists and 68 steals.
 
Four Ivy League teams were represented on the All-Ivy second team. Columbia’s Abbey Hsu and Sienna Durr were honored along with Yale’s Camilla Emsbo, Justine Gaziano of Brown, and Harvard’s Jeannie Boehm. Emsbo was twice named Ivy League Player of the Week, Hsu earned five Rookie of the Week honors, and Boehm led the league in rebounding at 9.1 boards per contest.
 
Cornell’s Samantha Widmann and Laura Bagwell-Katalinich earned Honorable Mention All-Ivy status, along with Lola Mullaney and Princeton’s Julia Cunningham.
 
2020 IVY LEAGUE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ALL-IVY
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
*Bella Alarie, Princeton (Sr., F – Bethesda, Md.)
 
COACH OF THE YEAR
*Carla Berube, Princeton
 
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Eleah Parker, Penn (Jr., C – Charlotte, N.C.)
 
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Kayla Padilla, Penn (Fr., G – Torrance, California)
 
FIRST TEAM ALL-IVY
*Bella Alarie, Princeton (Sr., F – Bethesda, Md.)
*Carlie Littlefield, Princeton (Jr., G – Waukee, Iowa)
*Roxy Barahman, Yale (Sr., G – Calabasas, California)
Eleah Parker, Penn (Jr., C – Charlotte, N.C.)
Kayla Padilla, Penn (Fr., G – Torrance, California)
 
SECOND TEAM ALL-IVY
Camilla Emsbo, Yale (So., F – Lakewood, Colo.)
Abbey Hsu, Columbia (Fr., G – Parkland, Florida)
Sienna Durr, Columbia (So., G/F – Grinnell, Iowa)
Justine Gaziano, Brown (Sr., G – Natick, Mass.)
Jeannie Boehm, Harvard (Sr., F – Winnetka, Ill.)

HONORABLE MENTION ALL-IVY
Lola Mullaney, Harvard (Fr., G – Colts Neck, N.J.)
Samantha Widmann, Cornell (Sr., G/F – Lawrenceville, N.J.)
Julia Cunningham, Princeton (So., G – Watchung, N.J.)
Laura Bagwell-Katalinich, Cornell (Sr., F – Minneapolis, Minn.)