Center Valley, PA (March 2, 2010) – Senior Darnell Braswell (Allentown, PA/William Allen) was named the Freedom Conference Player of the Year for the second straight year, head coach Scott Coval was named the Freedom Conference Coach of the Year for the third straight year, and junior Brian Hunter (Allentown, PA/Emmaus) was honored on the All-Freedom Conference Second-Team as announced by the conference office and as voted on by the eight Freedom Conference coaches on Tuesday.
The Bulldogs won its second straight Freedom Conference Championship over the weekend, defeating Misericordia University in the title game after posting a 13-1 record in the regular season to earn the conference's #1 seed in the playoffs. DSU advances to its second straight NCAA Tournament this weekend at William Paterson University on Friday and Saturday night.
Coval takes home Coach of the Year honors for the third straight year and for the fifth time overall in his career. He was also honored last season as the NABC Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year after guiding DeSales to the NCAA “Elite Eight”. This season the Bulldogs have won 20+ games for the fourth straight under Coval's watch and he became just the third coach in DeSales history (all sports) to win 300+ games in a career.
Braswell takes home his second straight Conference Player of the Year award and is named to the All-Conference First-Team for the second time after also earning Second-Team honors as a sophomore. The NABC First-Team All-American and Mid-Atlantic Region Player of the Year last year leads the Bulldogs in scoring (21.0 PPG) and rebounding (8.2 RPG) this season. Braswell has recorded nine double-doubles and during the season broke the single-game scoring record with 41 points in a win over King's College and also became DSU's all-time leading scorer with just under 1,700 points in his career.
Hunter earns All-Conference honors for the first time in his career. He is second on the team in scoring at 10.6 points per game and has a team-high 102 assists. Hunter enters the week ranked among the top 50 players in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio.
