By Ike Ejikeme
Bria Smith, freshman biology major from Bayonne has been awarded New Jersey Athletics Conference Women’s Basketball Rookie of the Week honors three weeks in a row.
With Smith’s help, the women’s basketball team currently holds a 3-6 record and is showing obvious improvements from last year’s team.
So far this season, four out of their five losses were games of which the final score was decided by 5 or less points. Smith is one of the key reasons the team has been so competitive since the start of the season.
In the Gothic Knights’ season opener, Smith led in scoring (17 points) and in rebounds (17), in a nailbiter 63-66 loss at Salem State University.
In another loss against conference rival Rutgers-Newark, Smith posted a huge double figure night with 17 points and 16 rebounds. Smith attributes her success to her father who is her biggest supporter.
“I feel pretty good about it and it definitely did surprise me, but my father tells me to just let the game come to me and play my own game” said Smith about her current success at NJCU.
Taking from her father’s wisdom, it seems that scoring comes easy for the 5’ 8 forward, but what else is noteworthy about Smith is her ability to rebound the ball.
She hauled in double digit rebounds in four of her first five games; usually grabbing at least half or more of the teams average rebounds.
Smith becomes only the second Gothic Knight in program history to take home the NJAC Rookie of the Week in each of the first three weeks of their freshman playing season, matching the feat achieved by Angela Fitzgerald early in the 2007-08 season (November 19 and 26 and December 3, 2007).
Let’s hope Smith can continue her dominance on the Icess at NJCU. court and can spark a season changing win-streak!