Valerie
Nainima Garners Second Team All-Met
Honors |
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Nainima was named the NEC Rookie of the Week a record-breaking 10 times, including five consecutive weeks from Jan. 15 to Feb 12.. She led the Blackbirds in scoring on 22 occasions, and surpassed the 20-point mark 11 times.
The freshman finished the regular season averaging 4.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals per game. She was also named to the PrestoSports/MBWA Honor Roll on Feb. 26. Nainima is the second Blackbird to earn NEC Player of the Year honors; Tamika Dudley took home the award following the 2001-02 season. Kim Mac Millan is the only other Long Island player to earn the NEC Rookie of the Year award, winning the award in 1999-2000.
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4/9/07
-- Long Island University women’s
basketball player Valerie Nainima (Suva, Fiji) was named to
the 2006-07
All-Met Division I Second Team by the National Invitation Tournament
and the Met Basketball Writers Association. The honor is the
third postseason award for the freshman who was the first player
to be named both player of the year and rookie of the year
by the Northeast Conference.
Nainima netted a career-high
30 points in Long Island’s
first win of the season, a 78-46 romp over Siena on Nov. 20 that
kicked off a six-game win streak. She matched that feat in the
Blackbirds’ 91-79 loss to Iona in the Women’s National
Invitation Tournament. In Long Island’s 68-64 loss at Robert
Morris on Feb. 22, she put the Blackbirds on her back and scored
29 points as the team nearly erased a 21-point deficit. Nainima
shot 12-for-12 from the line in that game and followed up that
performance with a 4-for-4 mark in Long Island’s top seed-clinching
win at Saint Francis (Pa.) on Feb. 24. In that contest, she hit
for 22 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out a season-high
six assists. Nainima has currently converted 17 consecutive chances
from the charity stripe.