Senior forward Jacqueline Batteast has been tapped as one of four finalists for the 2005 Honda Sports Award for basketball, with the honor going to the country's top women's college basketball player.

Jacqueline Batteast Selected As Finalist For Honda Sports Award

April 7, 2005

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame senior forward Jacqueline Batteast (South Bend, Ind./Washington HS) has been chosen as a finalist for the 2005 Honda Sports Award for basketball, it was announced Thursday. Batteast joins LSU’s Seimone Augustus, Duke’s Monique Currie and Ohio State’s Jessica Davenport as the four candidates for the award, which goes to the nation’s top women’s college basketball player. The winner also will become a candidate for the Honda-Broderick Cup, awarded annually to the country’s outstanding collegiate female athlete for all sports.

Voting for the Honda Sports Award will be done by senior woman administrators at all NCAA member schools. In addition to having a student-athlete on the Honda Sports Award ballot, each school with a finalist will receive a $1,000 donation to its women’s athletic fund, courtesy of American Honda. The winner’s program will receive a $5,000 award.

A member of the prestigious Kodak/WBCA All-America Team and a third-team Associated Press All-America selection, as well as the BIG EAST Conference Player of the Year and Preseason WNIT Most Valuable Player, Batteast averaged 16.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game with six double-doubles and 29 double-digit scoring games in her final season at Notre Dame. She departs as one of the most decorated players in school history, having been a four-time all-BIG EAST selection (a first-team pick the past two years) and ranking among the top five in the Irish career record books in 16 categories, including points (4th – 1,874), scoring average (4th – 15.2 ppg.), rebounds (4th – 965), rebounding average (4th – 7.8 rpg.), blocked shots (3rd – 167), blocks average (3rd – 1.36 bpg.), games started (3rd – 119) and double-doubles (2nd – 38). She also set a new school record by starting the final 97 games of her career, breaking Gaither’s old mark of 95 consecutive starts from 1994-97.

Batteast was one of the cornerstones in Notre Dame’s 27-6 record this season, as well as its run to the Preseason WNIT championship and a second-place finish in the BIG EAST. The 27 victories equal the success of the 1999-2000 squad for the third-highest win total in school history, while the .818 winning percentage is the fourth-best mark in the program’s 28-year history and the fifth time in the past nine seasons the Irish have won better than 80 percent of their games. Notre Dame wound up ranked 11th in the year-end AP poll and 15th in the final ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll.

Currently enrolled in the College of Arts and Letters with a major in film, television & theater, Batteast is on target to earn her bachelor’s degree in May. She also is eligible to be selected in the 2005 WNBA Draft, which will be held at the NBA Entertainment Studios in Secaucus, N.J., on Saturday, April 16 beginning at noon EDT (11 a.m. EST/CDT in South Bend). All three rounds of the draft will be televised, with the first round airing on ESPN2 and the final two rounds being shown on NBA TV.

— ND —