WESTFIELD, Mass. - Westfield State senior guard Jill Valley has been named the 2016-17 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference women's basketball player of the year. Valley repeats as the award winner after picking up the same honor at the conclusion of the 2015-16 season.
Valley leads the conference in points per game (22.5), steals per game (4.6), and free throw-percentage (81%).
She's had an outstanding season that has been well documented, including back-to-back 52 and 39-point games, and was named MVP of last week's MASCAC tournament. She leads the nation in steals and seventh in scoring. She has broken or established at least nine school records this season, including the record-setting 52 point outburst on February 18, which is also the highest total in NCAA Division III women's basketball this season.
For her career, Valley has totaled 1,451 points, good for fourth on the Owls' all-time scoring list, and is the program's all-time leading free throw shooter at better than 83 percent.
She has led the Owls, the highest-scoring team in the country, to the 2017 MASCAC regular-season and tournament titles, a 19-8 overall record, an 11-1 mark in the MASCAC and a bid to the NCAA Division III Championship tournament, where Westfield will face #15 Montclair State (25-2) in the opening round on Friday, March 3.
Surprisingly, Valley was the lone member of the Owls' squad to be named to the MASCAC All-Conference teams, where she was a first-team selection for the second straight year after being a second team pick in 2015. She was the league's player of the week on five occasions this season, and a three-time New England Women's Basketball Association player of the week. She was named the US Basketball Writers National Player of the Week on February 20 and was named to the D3Hoops.com national team of the week that week as well.
Valley is the first member of the Owls to earn the award two years in a row. A Westfield player has been the circuit's player of the year in each of the last three seasons, as Jen Ashton won the award in 2015. It is the ninth time a Westfield State player has been named the loop's player or co-player of the year since 1992.
Full MASCAC Release and All-Conference Teams
