March 30, 2004
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame junior forward Jacqueline Batteast (South Bend, Ind./Washington HS) was named to the 2004 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship East Regional All-Tournament Team, it was announced late Monday night. Batteast is the sixth player in school history to earn a place on the regional all-tournament team, and the first since Alicia Ratay, Ruth Riley and Kelley Siemon all were tapped for the NCAA Midwest Regional All-Tournament Team in 2001.
Batteast capped off a brilliant season Saturday afternoon with game highs of 22 points and 12 rebounds in a 55-49 loss to No. 5/7 Penn State in the East Regional Semifinals at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Conn. In three NCAA Tournament games this year, Batteast averaged 22.0 points and 11.7 rebounds per game with a .483 field goal percentage and three consecutive double-doubles as Notre Dame (21-11) advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the sixth time in the past eight years.
The regional all-tournament team selection is yet another in a growing series of postseason honors for Batteast, who was named an Associated Press honorable mention All-American last week. She also was a finalist for both the Naismith Award and the Kodak/WBCA All-America Team, in addition to garnering first-team all-BIG EAST Conference and WBCA Classic All-Tournament Team laurels.
This season, Batteast set new career highs for scoring average (16.0 ppg.), rebounding average (8.6 rpg.), field goal percentage (.452), double-doubles (13) and 20-point games (10). Her 276 rebounds this season are tied for the fifth-best in school history and second all-time among Notre Dame juniors behind Katryna Gaither’s 283 caroms in 1995-96. The talented Irish wing was at her best against top competition this year, averaging 16.3 points and 9.0 rebounds with five double-doubles and three near double-doubles against 11 ranked opponents. In addition to the Penn State game, Batteast’s best effort against a Top 25 team came on Jan. 13 when she piled up 23 points and 11 rebounds to help Notre Dame knock off No. 4 Connecticut, 66-51 at the Joyce Center.
For her career, Batteast ranks 11th in school history in scoring (1,315 points), just 58 points shy of moving into the Top 10 in that category. She also is fourth in career scoring average (14.6 ppg.), seventh in rebounds (747), second in rebounding average (8.3 rpg.) and eighth in both double-figure scoring games (72) and 20-point games (21). In addition, she will carry a streak of 64 consecutive games started into next season, a run that dates back to the beginning of the 2002-03 campaign, and she has started 86 of a possible 90 games in her college career.
Batteast is one of eight monogram winners who will return for the Irish in 2004-05, joining three incoming freshmen. Notre Dame currently is one of just five programs in the country to advance to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen six times in the last eight years, and it is one of only six schools to win 20-or-more games in each of the last 11 seasons.
— ND —