SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Three Lady Bears received the top honors for the 2008-09 season Sunday at the Missouri State Women’s Basketball Postseason Banquet at the Doubletree Hotel. Junior Roxy Stiles took home the Lady Bear Prestige Award, while freshmen Casey Garrison and Jasmine Malone claimed team MVP and defensive player of the year honors, respectively.
Garrison turned in one of the top all-around freshman campaigns in school history, culminating in her selections as MVC Freshman of the Year and First Team All-MVC. The Bolivar, Mo., product’s 476 points registered as the 19th-highest total in Missouri State history, while her 15.9 ppg. scoring average was the second-best mark for a true freshman in all of Division I women’s basketball in 2008-09. The 5-11 guard finished the season trailing only NCAA Division I scoring leader Jackie Stiles, who poured home 618 points during the 1997-98 campaign, on MSU’s freshman scoring list. A four-time MVC Newcomer of the Week honoree, Garrison also rated as the school’s second-leading freshman shot-blocker (0.8 bpg.) and finished the year among MSU’s all-time top five freshmen in assists (3.1 apg.) and rebounds (6.1 rpg.) as well, and became the first Lady Bear freshman to lead MSU in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals and blocked shots over a complete season.
Garrison was the fifth Lady Bear to earn The Valley’s rookie of the year honor, an elite group that includes Secelia Winkfield (1990), Roshonda Reed (1996), Jackie Stiles (1998), Jenni Lingor (2002) and Kari Koch (2003).
Stiles becomes the sixth Missouri State underclassman to receive the Lady Bear Prestige Award, which is given to the player exhibiting the most desire, determination and dedication. A five-time MSU Dean’s List and two-time Missouri Valley Conference academic honoree, the Claflin, Kan., native maintains a 3.93 cumulative grade point average in exercise and movement science and will continue to work toward a career in medicine after announcing in March that a chronic hip condition will force her to miss her senior season in 2009-10.
Despite suffering through chronic pain associated with her hip condition, Stiles played in all 88 games of her Missouri State career, averaging 4.3 points and 1.4 rebounds per contest. Her biggest season came as a freshman in 2006-07, when she started the last 26 games of the year and averaged 8.4 points per game for the Lady Bears. This past February, she was selected by The Valley as one of 10 student-athletes conference-wide for the State Farm MVC Good Neighbor Award in recognition of her good citizenship through sportsmanship and community service efforts. Stiles was also one of 37 MVC student-athletes to receive the Commissioner’s Academic Excellence Award in 2007-08.
Malone receives the Lady Bears’ defensive player of the year honor after recording 47 steals, 18 blocks and pulling down 4.3 rebounds per game as a freshman. The San Antonio native’s steal total tied for the eighth-best mark for a Missouri State freshman, while her 1.6 steal per game average ranked eighth overall in the MVC. Malone’s 18 blocks is the fourth-highest freshman total since the 1983-84 season, the first in which the statistic was officially tracked.
The Lady Bears finished the 2008-09 season with a 10-20 record under second-year head coach Nyla Milleson.
