Carissa Verkaik Named d3hoops.com Great Lakes Regional Player of the Year
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A year ago, Carissa Verkaik was named the d3hoops.com Great Lakes Region Rookie of the Year. This morning, she was announced as the d3hoops.com Great Lakes Region Player of the Year while also landing a spot on the d3hoops.com Great Lakes All-Region first team for the second straight year.
A native of Holland and a graduate of Hollland Christian High School, Verkaik averaged 19.8 points and 9.5 rebounds a game while also blocking 123 shots for an average of 4.1 blocks-per-game. She also connected on 59.6 percent of her field goal attempts and 86.7 percent of her free throw attempts.
During the year, she tallied 14 double-doubles and on two occassions, missed a triple-double by just one blocked shot. She was named to all-tournament teams three times this year, doing so at the Wisconsin Lutheran Tip-Off Tournament, the Olivet College Thanksgiving Classic and the Cal Lutheran Posoda Royale Holiday Classic. She was later named the MIAA’s Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row and earned a spot on the All-MIAA first team. In Calvin’s MIAA regular season finale against Trine, she became the fastest player in Calvin women’s basketball history to reach 1,000 points for her career.
Heading into next year, Verkaik sits 10th on the Calvin career scoring list (1,121 points) and sixth on the Calvin career rebounding list (557).
Over the course of the season, she led Calvin to an overall record of 25-5 which included a share of the MIAA regular season title with Hope and Calvin’s first MIAA Tournament title since 2007. The Knights later advanced to the second round of the NCAA III Tournament before falling to eventual national quarterfinalist Chicago 67-62.
