Third year Clipper, Valerie Robinson capped of a remarkable individual season with being named to the 2010-11 ACAC Women’s Basketball All-Conference Team.

Robinson’s honor of Second Team All-Conference is the first one for Briercrest women’s basketball in nine years. The award was well-deserved as the 5’ 11” forward from Saskatoon, SK, was in the top five in the strong ACAC South Division in several key stat categories.

She was second overall in field goal percentage and in blocks per game. She was third in rebounds per game and fourth in scoring, with an average of just under 14 points per game. Her consistent performance game in and game out earned her the respect of the opposing coaches in the ACAC, who vote on the All-Conference awards.

Robinson’s coach, Shane Sowden, says his star post is worthy of the recognition.

“Val had one of the strongest seasons statistically in the past decade for the program”, Sowden said. Val has great athletic ability which helped her have a very strong season.  Her all conference and female athlete of the year awards are a testament to the type of season she had.”

Robinson is grateful for the award.

“I was very excited on being named to the All-Conference Team but also pretty surprised”, she said. “I had never really even considered receiving an All-Conference award so it was unexpected but very exciting and encouraging.”

Robinson says that her biggest improvement this season was her post play, which made her a more confident player.

“My coaches worked a lot with me down in the post this season, improving my post moves and strengthening my presence on the block. So, I would say that I felt much more confident down in the post this season as a result of all the work my coaches put in with me in that area.”

Despite being a standout on her team, Robinson is humble and acknowledges that her success is because of her teammates and coaches.

“My team is definitely the biggest reason for my success this year”, she said. “Through the last rough couple of seasons with not many wins, our team has really grown a heart of support and encouragement for each other, and that is a huge thing to have every day at practice and on game weekends.”

“A lot of games I feel like my teammates often did more work than I did – they are all selfless players and the only reason I got the points I did was because they were constantly feeding me the ball”, Robinson continued. “(Coaches) Shane and Chad (Romanuk) are also a huge part of my success putting in endless hours of practices and individual workouts where they really invested in each of us. They help us keep basketball in perspective and that was important for me this season.”

Robinson completed her Associate of Arts degree this April and has plans to return to Briercrest and work on her Bachelor’s degree next season. She is excited to build on the improvements she made this year and continue to become more of a force in the ACAC.