University of Montana women’s basketball coach Robin Selvig announced his team’s annual awards recently at the team’s post-season banquet. Five Lady Griz players were recognized through voting of their teammates and the Montana coaching staff.

Honored this year were seniors Britney Lohman, Mandy Morales and Sonya Rogers and sophomores Sarah Ena and Stephanie Stender.

Lohman received the team’s Outstanding Defensive Player award for the third straight year. She joins former Lady Griz Cheryl Keller and Sherri Brooks as the program’s only three- or four-time winners of the award. Keller was the co-winner as a freshman in 1999 before winning the award outright the next three seasons. Brooks won the award three straight years between 1993-94 and 1995-96.

Lohman, the Big Sky Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a junior, was the top defender on one of the nation’s top defensive teams in 2008-09. Montana allowed just 55.5 points per game on 34.7 percent shooting, which ranked 27th and ninth in the nation, respectively.

The Lady Griz led the Big Sky in those categories by a wide margin. Portland State ranked second in points allowed at 65.2, nearly 10 more per game than Montana allowed. Idaho State was a distant second to the Lady Griz in field goal percentage defense at 40.4 percent.

A four-time Academic All-Big Sky Conference selection, Lohman was second team All-Big Sky as a sophomore, junior and senior.

“I normally don’t like to single out players who might have been the best at this or that,” Selvig said, “but I know I’ve never had a better defender than Britney. I would watch video sometimes just for the fun of watching her play defense. She was not only good at the physical part of it, but she was so mentally bright defensively.

“Britney had great defensive instincts and took a lot of pride in her defense. She made the whole team better defensively. We improved on that end (between 2007-08 and 2008-09) and that was a huge part of our success this season.”

Morales was voted the team’s Mary Louise Pope Zimmerman Most Valuable Player for a program-record fourth consecutive season. She led the team in scoring (16.9 ppg) and assists (4.6/g) last winter and ranked third in rebounding at 6.0 boards per game.

She ranked in the top 10 in eight different Big Sky Conference statistical categories, including first in scoring and free throw percentage (.847), and was named the Big Sky Conference Most Valuable Player for the second time in her career. Morales was also named league MVP as a sophomore.

Morales was a four-time honorable mention All-American, a four-time first team All-Big Sky selection and a Big Sky-record 13-time conference player of the week. She finished her career ranked second in Lady Griz history in scoring (1,959) and tied for second in assists (587), becoming the first player in Big Sky Conference history to reach 1,500 career points and 500 career assists.

“Mandy had a brilliant career with many, many highlights despite battling a lot of physical ailments,” Selvig said. “What made her great was that she was such a complete player without any weaknesses. She was an inside-outside scorer, she was a great passer, she was a good defender and she was a great competitor who wanted to win. That was always the No. 1 thing on her mind.

“We asked a lot of her and did a lot of different things with her, and she always rose to those challenges.”

Rogers was named the Shannon Green Most Inspirational Player, the one award voted on by just the players. After earning second team All-Big Sky honors as a sophomore and honorable mention accolades as a junior, Rogers was named first team All-Big Sky Conference as a senior after averaging 13.6 points per game to rank sixth in the league.

After averaging 4.8 points per game as a freshman in 2005-06, Rogers became one of the program’s most prolific scorers her final three seasons, averaging 12.6 points per game while playing over 31 minutes per game over the course of her sophomore, junior and senior seasons.

 She finished her career ranked 10th on the Montana career scoring list with 1,320 points while matching a program record by playing in 124 career games. The nation’s 3-point field goal percentage leader as a junior, Rogers finished her career with 206 threes, third in Montana history, and ranked second in career free throw percentage at 84.5 percent.

“This was a fitting award for Sonya,” Selvig said. “It was her teammates who voted on this award who were around her every day that she inspired to keep up with her and her tremendous work ethic. It wasn’t just that Sonya played every game for everything she was worth, she did the same thing in every practice and in every drill.

“It’s nice to have players like that. Whatever drill, whatever time of season, she just competed.”

Ena received the Theresa Rhoads Award as the player who best exemplifies Lady Griz basketball. The award is sponsored by Lady Griz Hoop Club members Jess and Nancy Rhoads in memory of their daughter Theresa.

After averaging 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds per game as a freshman, Ena upped her averages as a sophomore to 10.7 points and a team-high 6.8 rebounds per game while starting 32 of 33 games and averaging 24.0 minutes per game.

Ena averaged 11.0 points per game in league play and ranked sixth in the Big Sky in rebounding at 7.1 boards per game. She was named to the All-Big Sky Conference tournament team in March after averaging 16.5 points and 10.0 rebounds per game in victories over Idaho State and Portland State.

“The idea of this award is that it goes to someone who is not only a good player but a great representative of the University and Lady Griz basketball, both on and off the court,” Selvig said. “Anyone who knows Sarah would know that she’s a very fitting recipient.

“She gives a lot of herself to others, and she’s a great teammate. When you consider that someone cared enough to sponsor an award in their daughter’s memory, I think it’s a real honor to get this award.”

Stender was voted the team’s Grace Geil Most Improved Player. She redshirted in 2006-07 and scored 16 points and grabbed three rebounds while playing in 15 games as a redshirt freshman in 2007-08.

As a sophomore, Stender averaged 2.7 points and 1.9 rebounds per game while playing 10.0 minutes per game in 30 of 33 games. She joined Jessa Linford and Shaunte Nance-Johnson as part of Selvig’s regular rotation as the season progressed.

“At the start of the year I said if we wanted to be good one of the things we needed was to develop our depth, and Steph is one of the big reasons that happened,” Selvig said. “She made a big move this year, and it happened early during our nonconference season. She shot the ball well, so she became a more confident scorer, and she made huge strides defensively.

“Steph settled in and started to understand what she could do and what we wanted her to do. She stepped up and improved her game, which allowed us to go deeper and get more things out of more kids.”

Montana went 28-5 in 2008-09, winning the Big Sky Conference with a 15-1 league mark. The Lady Griz advanced to their 18th NCAA tournament, where they dropped a 64-35 decision as a No. 13 seed to No. 4 Pittsburgh.