The Big South Conference announced Monday that Liberty women’s basketball player Allyson Fasnacht has been named the Big South Conference’s Woman of the Year for 2007-08.
Fasnacht is Liberty’s second consecutive Big South Woman of the Year honoree. In 2007, track & field standout Arlene Zelinskas was recognized by the conference.
Fasnacht was a four-year letter winner for the Lady Flames and helped Liberty capture three Big South regular-season and tournament championships, as well as three NCAA Tournament berths — including Liberty’s run to the Sweet 16 in 2005.
She was the MVP of the 2006 Big South Championship, was a Big South All-Freshman team selection in 2005, and was named first-team all-conference in 2006.
Fasnacht was honored as the Big South Scholar-Athlete of the Year in women’s basketball in 2007-08 and was a two-time ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District selection during her career.
In addition, she was named to the Big South Presidential Honor Roll three times, was team captain her junior and senior seasons, and was a two-time member of the Big South Women’s Basketball All-Academic Team.
She appeared in 124 career games for Liberty with 95 starts, scoring 672 points while handing out 326 career assists.
The point guard, who graduated with a 3.89 grade-point average in sports management and is currently pursuing an MBA degree at Liberty, helped the Lady Flames earn a spot on the WBCA Academic National Top 25 Team Honor Roll in 2005-06 and 2006-07.
She recently won Liberty’s Rock Royer/Mac Rivera Award, the university’s highest athletic honor presented each year to a senior student-athlete.
She also received the inaugural Dr. Jerry Falwell Leadership Award this past spring.
As the Big South Woman of the Year, Fasnacht is nominated as a candidate for the national NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
The NCAA also allows conferences to nominate a second candidate if one of the two student-athletes is a minority.
Winthrop softball player Stephanie Reid, a finalist for the Big South Woman of the Year award, is also nominated by the conference for the NCAA award.