GENESEO, N.Y. - The Empire 8 and UCHC announced their weekly honors on Monday afternoon, and SUNY Geneseo had five student-athletes take home honors.
Grace Galgano picked up Women's Basketball Player of the Week honors,
Jaiyden Jones earned the Men's Basketball Rookie of the Week award,
Ian Vandenberg brought home UCHC Rookie of the Week honors, and
Alex Sotek and
Alex Palmer rounded out the awards by sweeping the Swimmer of the Week awards.
Galgano was dominant for the Knights in a 2-0 week, scoring 19 points against William Smith, and then 22 against RIT. Against the Tigers, Galgano drained the game-winning bucket with seven seconds left to secure the 64-63 win, while also chipping in nine rebounds, three assists, and two steals. Against the Herons, Galgano tallied a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead the team to an 82-53 win. Over both games, the Brewster, NY native shot 17-27 from the field and 5-5 from the free throw line.
Jones had an impressive three-game week for the Knights, scoring 12, 14, and 21 points to average 15.7 points per game over the three-game week on 69.2 percent shooting from the floor (18-of-26) to go along with 5.3 boards per contest. In the Knights 80-76 win over RIT, Jones dropped 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting including 2-from-3 from deep. At the Wooster tournament, Jones combined for 35 points over two games, going 13-from-19 from the field, including a season-high 21 points at Wooster Saturday.
Palmer put up another dominant performance for the Knights, competing in six events over three days at the Kenyon Total Performance Invite, where he was a part of two program and conference record breaking performances. In the 200-yard breaststroke, Palmer won the event with a time of 1:58.78, in the preliminaries, he touched the wall in 1:58.37. Palmer was also on the 200-yard medley relay team, which took third place and set a new program and conference record at 1:28.93. Palmer also competed in the 200-yard individual medley and took fourth at 1:50.12, the 400-yard medley relay where the team took sixth at 3:19.97, the 100-yard breaststroke where he finished second at 54.58, and the 400-yard freestyle relay. It is Palmer's third E8 weekly honor of the season.
Sotek put up an impressive performance in the Knights three-day invite at Kenyon, highlighted by finishing first overall in the 50-yard freestyle at 23.08, out-touching second place by one, one-hundredth of a second. Sotek also competed in the 100-yard butterfly and took third at 55.36 seconds. In relay events she competed in the 200-yard freestyle relay (4th - 1:34.55), 400-yard medley relay (6th - 3:49.83), 200-yard medley relay (3rd - 1:43.37), and the 400-yard freestyle relay (7th - 3:29.57). It is Sotek's third E8 weekly honor of the season.
Vandenberg led Geneseo to a 2-1 win over Nazareth on Friday, putting up 38 saves in the winning effort. His dominant game was highlighted by saving 21 shots in the first period. Vandenberg is now 2-0 on the season with 92 saves.
Full press release from the Empire 8 | UCHC
