Smith, Stanwick take Tewaaratons
2011 Male and Female Tewaaraton Award Recipients Announced
Two Juniors Presented with Collegiate Lacrosse’s Top Honor
Washington, D.C. – Shannon Smith and Steele Stanwick, both coming off NCAA Division I National Championship victories, were named as the 2011 Tewaaraton Award Recipients at its 11th Anniversary event. Both individuals were one of five finalists in their respective divisions.
The Tewaaraton Award watch list began with over 100 of the nation’s top men and women college players in the race to receive the sport’s top honor. The watch list was ultimately narrowed down to the top five men and women, all of whom were in attendance at the ceremony.
Smith has become one of Northwestern University’s top offensive players, with an average of 5.58 points per game and 106 total career points. She is a two-time WomensLacrosse.com Offensive Player of the Week and a three-time American Lacrosse Conference (ALC) Offensive Player of the Week Selection, where she was also named Championship MVP. At Northwestern, Shannon ranks 7th all-time in points with 246, 9th in career goals with 170, and 6th in assists with 76. She ranks 3rd nationally in goals scored with 68. Shannon recorded only the sixth 10-point game in Northwestern’s history and the 2nd of her career against Georgetown, where she scored five goals and had five assists. She is the 2010 Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) All-American and the first-team All-ALC selection. Shannon has started all 74 games of her Northwestern career, and is on pace to set career highs for draw controls and ground balls. Shannon is a junior from West Babylon, New York.
Stanwick was named USILA second-team All-American, All-ACC, All-ACC Tournament, All-NCAA Championship Team, and ACC Player of the Week all in 2010. He is ranked No. 23 nationally in points per game with 3.39, ranked No. 93 nationally for goals per game with 1.61, ranked No. 12 nationally for assists per game 1.78, and ranked No. 48 nationally for shot percentage with 38.2. Steele led his team with 32 assists, was the second on the team with 61 points and 29 goals. He was named Player of the Game against No. 2 University of North Carolina in the Big City Classic after scoring three goals and dishing one assist. In 2009, he was named ACC Rookie of the Year, and the nation’s top recruit by Inside Lacrosse. He was the third in nation among freshmen in with 36 goals, second in points with 58, and 22 assists. He ranked 10th in the nation in shooting at 44.4%, and ranked high on University of Virginia’s list for freshmen, being first in points with 58, second in goals with 36, and tied for fifth in assists with 22. Steele is a junior from Baltimore, Maryland.
Hall of Famer James “Jim” Brown was present at the ceremony to accept the first ever Tewaaraton Legends award. Going forward, this award will be presented to one recipient each year that played collegiate lacrosse prior to 2001 and whose performance would have earned them a Tewaaraton Award had the pre-eminent honor existed.
In addition to the Tewaaraton Award recipient announcement; The University Club Foundation of Washington, DC presented the 2011 Outstanding Native American High School Scholarships to Kristiana Ferguson of the Tuscarora Nation and Christopher White of the Oneida Nation. Ferguson will be attending Syracuse University, and White plans to play lacrosse at Sienna College in the fall. The scholarship is based on merit, academic achievement, athletic performance and ambition. Moreover, all applicants were required to articulate what lacrosse meant to them as Native American players.
The ceremony will premiere locally in the Washington, D.C. region on WUSA-Channel 9 on Saturday, June 11th at 12:30 p.m. EST.
About The Tewaaraton Award:
The Tewaaraton Award was founded by the University Club of Washington DC in August, 2000 to annually recognize the most outstanding men’s and women’s collegiate lacrosse players and to symbolize lacrosse’s centuries-old roots in Native American history. The word “Tewaaraton” is the name given by the Iroquois Confederacy for the game now called lacrosse. Each year the Tewaaraton Award celebrates one of the six tribal nations of the Iroquois Confederacy: the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and the Tuscarora. Today, the Tewaaraton Trophy is the pre-eminent award in lacrosse which also recognizes a Boys and Girls Baltimore/Washington All-Tewaaraton teams and provides scholarships to Native American youth from the Iroquois Confederacy.