I guess I should go over those two polls with you. First for the Ryan Grace scoring average poll. For those of you who don't know, Ryan Grace is a Tree Hill Raven. Having watched him play pick up before, he can be a leading scorer and help his team win. However, on the Tree Hill Ravens there are enough other scoring options so Ryan won't need to be the leading scorer. I'd say he averages 6-10. If he does that his team should be in a good position to win. For those of you who put 0-5, stop hating. For those of you who put 11 or above, I'm betting that Ryan would average that if Meghan Cunningham came to watch him play. Ryan will play to the level of his fans.
As for the Best fall Athlete other than Donald Brown, I like the selection. First off, Donald Brown lead the nation in rushing. No athlete at UConn was better in the fall than him. And Believe me, if I say that its true. No other team/athlete can argue that they or one of their teammates were better than Donald Brown. Of all the people who follow UConn sports, I may respect teams other than basketball and football more than anyone else. If I say that Donald Brown was better than any other athlete in the fall, he was.
That doesn't mean there weren't impressive performances by other athletes. Other athletes should be noticed too. It was hard for me to pick between Stephanie Labbe and Lauren Aird. Annie Luhrsen was great, Volleyball improved over last year and she was amazing, but I can't say that she was better than Labbe or Aird. O'Brian White was the best fall athlete at UConn last year, the best male athlete on campus last year too. You can argue between him and Maya Moore for best athlete at UConn for 07-08. However, O'B fell victim to the injury bug. If he was healthy for the entire year, he could have gotten my vote. He was great, but luck wasn't on his side this year. It was still impressive that O'B was named Big East Offensive Player of the Year though.
So Aird or Labbe. I had a tough tough pick. I like Aird because she lead one of the best teams in the nation in game winners and also had that streak of 3 straight game winning overtime goals. 2 of those 3 teams were ranked and the other team was receiving votes.
Labbe was awesome this season and was so much fun to watch on TV in the 2 road games played against West Virginia, and the one against Notre Dame. She was also fun to watch at Morrone but I was most impressed with the 3 road games I saw on TV. She made several unbelievable full extension saves in those 3 games. In those 3 games on TV only two goals were scored (excluding Penalty Kicks) Steph's 27 saves in those 3 games made all the difference in the world. Labbe's penalty kick was also very important against West Virginia. I told Sam Witryol (the 86 year old professor who supports all of the female amateur athletics) that I'd love to see Labbe score a goal. He said impossible, I said Improbable. I was referring to kicking it across the field and having it go in (and there is such a small chance of that happening. Literally the other team would have to be brain dead) But penalty kicks never entered my thought process. (my thought process in soccer is pretty small considering I don't know much about it) I was impressed by her though, not only could Labbe prevent the ball going in under pressure, but also could kick the ball in under pressure. She was the MVP of the Women's Soccer team and lead them to the Championship game. There is little doubt in anyone's mind why she was named Big East Goalkeeper of the Year.
So Lauren Aird had a great year, but Labbe was the best fall athlete in 2008 not named Donald Brown.
As a side note, I like putting polls together where I put women's soccer, men's soccer, football, field hockey and basketball together. They are UConn's most elite sports teams. Year in and Year out these teams have the expectation of winning the league championship and a realistic goal competing for a National Championship. I try to treat them as equals as best that I can. (Basketball is still pretty much in a world of its own) UConn has a tradition in all of those sports or in football's case is trying really hard to start one. I want to keep that winning tradition going so I make a big deal about ALL of those teams.
It's also good to see that teams other than football and basketball get votes in these polls. Those teams have the most name recognition and are more likely to get votes from a casual UConn fan than any of the other sports.
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