DAVIS, Calif. — Senior forward
Cierra Hall became the second Aggie in the last three years to be named conference player of the year, junior post
Sage Stobbart gave UC Davis the league's defensive player of the year for the second consecutive season, and Head Coach
Jennifer Gross earned a share of the conference's top coaching award for the fifth straight year, highlighting the Big West Conference's postseason honor roll released on Monday morning.
In addition to the top honors, Hall and Stobbart were named to the All-Big West first team, senior
Mackenzie Trpcic earned a spot on the honorable mention list, while Stobbart and junior
Kayla Konrad were named to the all-defensive team.
Just a year after becoming the first head women's basketball coach in the history of the league to win four consecutive Big West Coach of the Year awards, Gross claimed a share of her fifth in 2021, putting her just two behind UC Santa Barbara's Mark French for the most in the history of the league. The 10th year Aggie mentor split this season's award with UC Irvine's Tamara Inoue.
Gross reached a pair of milestones despite only playing 12 games during the 2020-21 campaign, becoming only the seventh coach in league history to reach 100 Big West victories and standing just one league triumph shy of sixth. With her 183 career wins, Gross ranks fifth on the conference's all-time wins list, putting her just 46 victories back of fourth.
The Aggies' do-it-all senior Hall joined former teammate
Morgan Bertsch (2019) as the only UC Davis players to be named Big West Player of the Year, after helping lead her team to its fifth consecutive conference regular season title.
The versatile Hall ranked among the top 10 in the league in a number of categories, including pacing the conference in three-point percentage (.488), ranking seventh in scoring (14.0 ppg), 10th in assists per game (3.50 apg), third in free throw percentage (.857), 10th in three-pointers per game (1.67), fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.45), and seventh in defensive rebounding (5.25 rpg), while ranking 11th in rebounding (6.7 rpg).
Stobbart gave UC Davis the league's defensive player of the year for the second straight season, as the North Vancouver, B.C., native followed Hall's 2020 award with one of her own. In helping the Aggies limit opponents to league-lows in points per game (57.5 ppg), field goal percentage (.343), and three-point percentage (.266), during the regular season, Stobbart accounted for 32 of the team's 50 blocked shots, leading the Big West at 2.67 bpg.
She also ranks tied for fifth in the league in rebounding (8.0 rpg), third in field goal percentage (.457), and third in defensive rebounding (6.75 rpg), while averaging nearly 11 points per contest.
Hall and Stobbart's first-team awards marked the third time in the history of the program that UC Davis has had a pair on the first team. Bertsch and Pele Gianotti made the first team together in 2017, while Bertsch was joined by
Kourtney Eaton on the first team in 2019.
Trpcic picked up the first All-Big West honor of her career, averaging 9.8 points and 5.83 assists per game in the backcourt, while shooting .463 from the field. She led the league in assists per game and ranks third in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.84), while playing in an average of 35.30 minutes per contest — good for the second-most in the league.
Konrad joined Stobbart as part of the all-defensive team, becoming the third and fourth UC Davis players to be named to that list along with Bertsch (2018-19) and Hall (2019-20) as Aggies selected to that team.
The Valencia, Calif., native averaged 9.9 ppg and 3.8 rpg while shooting .437 from the field during the regular season, while ranking second on the team with 11 steals. Often tasked with guarding one of the opponent's top offensive threats, Konrad also ranks 12th in the league in three-point percentage (.372) and 11th in minutes per game (31.93).
After claiming the league's regular season championship for the fifth consecutive year — and the sixth time overall in 14 seasons as a member of the Big West — the Aggies have earned the top seed and first-round bye for the 2021 Air Force Reserve Big West Women's Basketball Championships, presented by The Hawaiian Islands in Las Vegas, Nev., later in the week. UC Davis will take on either No. 8 UC Riverside or No. 9 Cal State Fullerton in the quarterfinals on Wednesday (March 10) at 11 a.m. at the Michelob Ultra Arena at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
The defending champion Aggies have qualified for the Big West's postseason event every year since joining the league in 2007-08, making the tournament championship game six times in that span (2008, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2019) and winning the tournament title twice (2011 and 2019).
Against their possible quarterfinal opponents, UC Davis is 4-1 against UC Riverside in the tournament, winning the last three postseason meetings with the Highlanders, while UC Davis and Cal State Fullerton have never met in the Big West Tournament.
The Aggies' five consecutive conference titles is tied for the longest such run of league crowns in school history, joining the 1995-99 teams which won four straight Northern California Athletic Conference titles and the California Collegiate Athletic Association championship in their first year in the league. However, UC Davis' current run marks the first time the Aggies have won five straight outright league championships after the Aggies shared the 1997-98 NCAC title.
ABOUT UC DAVIS
Over 700 student-athletes across 25 intercollegiate athletics teams, following the addition of equestrian and women's beach volleyball in 2018, represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation.
Centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe and the Napa Valley, UC Davis is known nationwide as a leader in Title IX gender equity and leadership, ranks annually in the top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility and offers an unrivaled student-athlete experience that features the ideal combination of elite academics, Division I athletics and personal growth.
UC Davis is uncommonly committed to preparing student-athletes for life after graduation with Aggie EVO — an innovative student-athlete outcomes program that helps young women and men develop passions, gain real-world experience, and enjoy a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school. Through Aggie EVO, Intercollegiate Athletics provides unmatched resources and a vast network of working professionals to ensure post-graduation success for its student-athletes.
