With the announcement of its All-Conference Teams yesterday, the Ivy League honored several Big Green athletes for their excellence on the fields of play.
Dartmouth's Sea Lonergan '97 and Bess Tortolani '98 were both awarded First Team All-Ivy Basketball honors, as decided by the league's eight head coaches.
In women's hockey, the Big Green's Sarah Hood '98 and Amy Coelho '97 were also graced with First Team All-Ivy honors.
With his third consecutive appearance on the Ivy League's First Team, Lonergan became the 20th player in league history to take top honors in three seasons. As a freshman, he was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year.
Lonergan finished the season third in the league in overall scoring (17.0 ppg) and was among the league leaders in field goal percentage (.486), free-throw percentage (.766) and steals (2.2 per game).
"I am honored to be picked out of such a great group of players in the league," Lonergan said. "It is not necessarily something I strive for, but it is always nice to be rewarded for hard work."
"But I could not have done it without a lot of help from my coaches and teammates," he said, "and I have to give them a lot of the credit, especially Kenny [Mitchell] who does such an awesome job feeding me and the team the ball."
Earlier in the month, Lonergan was named to the GTE District I Academic All-America Men's Basketball Team for his prowess on the court and in the classroom. He was one of five players to earn this award.
On the women's side, this was Tortolani's first appearance on the First-Team roster. As the only member of the first unit not from the league's top two teams (Harvard and Brown), Tortolani led the Big Green in scoring with 13.7 points per game. She took Second-Team All-Ivy honors last season.
"I was extremely happy about getting All-Ivy," Tortolani said. "But I do have to say that there is no way I could have done it without my teammates."
On the ice, Coelho is a veteran of the Ivy League's First-Team, having won the award last year as well. She was named to the Second-Team during her sophomore year.
This season, Coelho tallied 13 goals and 14 assists in the regular season.
"Though awards tend to point out individuals," Coelho said, "I think all of the defensmen should be recognized for consistently stellar play without ever being recognized."
For Hood, this was her first time among the league's elite seven. She led the Big Green this season with 20 goals and 18 assists. Last year, Hood was awarded Honorable Mention.
Other honorees on the men's basketball squad were Seniors Kenny Mitchell and Brian Gilpin who were named Second-Team and awarded Honorable Mention, respectively.
For most of the season, Mitchell led the nation in assists while Gilpin was among the nation's top shot-blockers.
In women's hoops, sophomores Erin Rewalt and Nicci Rinaldi won Honorable Mentions in this year's Ivy League selections.
The two sides of this dynamic duo were also members of the All-Ivy Rookie Team last season.
Rinaldi finished the season with an average of 10.6 points per game and led the Big Green with 104 assists.
Meanwhile, Rewalt threw in an average of 10.1 points per game while grabbing a team-high average of 7.2 rebounds per game.
This year, it was freshman Courtney Banghart's turn to take the All-Ivy Rookie Team honors. She sank an average 8.0 points per game in her first season.
