Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer
Rio Grande placed five players on the All-River States Conference Women's Basketball Teams. The list of honorees included, from the left, first-teamers Kaylee Darnell and Reagan Willingham; second-teamers Aleea Crites and Lexi Woods; and third team selection Azyiah Williams.
Rio Grande placed five players on the All-River States Conference Women's Basketball Teams. The list of honorees included, from the left, first-teamers Kaylee Darnell and Reagan Willingham; second-teamers Aleea Crites and Lexi Woods; and third team selection Azyiah Williams.
Posted: Mar 04, 2024

Five RedStorm players named to All-RSC teams

Rio Grande/RSC Sports Information
     MIDDLETOWN, Ohio - Regular season champion University of Rio Grande placed five players on the 2023-24 River States Conference Women's Basketball Teams.
     The All-RSC Women's Basketball teams and individual award winners were announced by league officials on Monday night.
     The teams were voted on by the league's head coaches. The All-RSC First, Second & Third teams included 10 players each.
     Also announced were the RSC Champions of Character and Scholar-Athlete teams.
     Rio Grande, which takes a 25-5 record and a No. 21 ranking into Tuesday night's RSC Tournament Championship against Oakland City University, was represented on the All-RSC First Team by guards Kaylee Darnell (Wheelersburg, OH) and Reagan Willingham (Ashville, OH), while forwards Aleea Crites (Parkersburg, WV) and Lexi Woods (Waverly, OH) were Second Team selections.
     Junior guard Azyiah Williams (Ripley, OH) was the RedStorm's Third Team honoree.
     Darnell is averaging a team-high 18.2 points per game, along with 5.9 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.9 steals per contest.
     Willingham averages 15.3 ppg and leads the team with 95 three-point goals.
     Crites averages 11.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 1.0 blocked shots per game, while ranking first in field goal shooting percentage among those with 150 or more attempts at 55.9 percent.
     Willingham and Crites both surpassed the 1,000-point mark for their careers this season.
     Woods averages 12.0 points per game and a team-high 6.4 rebounds per game, while shooting 55.7 percent from the field.
     Williams averages 5.1 points per game, along with a team- and conference-leading 5.6 assists per contest. She ranks eighth nationally in per game average.
     Joining Darnell and Willingham on the All-RSC First Team were Ohio Christian University's Haley Cox, the RSC Player of the Year, and RSC Newcomer of the Year Gillian Piccolino from Point Park University.
     Cox, a senior guard from Columbus, Ohio, leads the conference at 27.0 ppg, which ranks third in the NAIA.
     Piccolino, a senior guard from Pittsburgh, Pa., and a transfer from Kennesaw State (Ga.), ranks sixth in the RSC in scoring at 16.9 ppg.
     The remainder of the First Team includes Hannah Kash of Alice Lloyd College; Oakland City University's Emilee Hope and Jayla Dowell; Gabriella Legister of Point Park; St. Mary-of-the-Woods' Brooklyn Jones; and Indiana University East's Taylor Farris.
     Crites and Woods were joined on the Second Team by Shawnee State University's Cianna Gloster and Markayla Holland; Sereniti Webb of Midway University; St. Mary-of-the-Woods' Madison Fueger; Emma Koons from Ohio Christian; Indiana University Southeast's Leah Miller; Alva Hedrich of WVU-Tech; and Oakland City's Marissa Austin.
     Other Third Team honorees with Williams were Shawnee State's Chianne Gloster; Ashley Deweese from Ohio Christian; Kassidy Daugherty of Midway; Destiny Thomas and Irye Gomez from St. Mary-of-the-Woods; IU East's Davina Smith and Kennedy Griffin; and Anna Kiser of IU Kokomo.
     FahKara Hawkins, head coach at Oakland City University was named RSC Coach of the Year.
     Hawkins, in her fourth season, has led the Mighty Oaks to the RSC West Division championship, an NAIA national tournament qualification and an RSC Championship finals appearance at 23-6 overall on the season.
     The RSC Champions of Character Team honors one member of each team who best displays the NAIA character traits of respect, responsibility, intergrity, servant leadership and sportsmanship.
     Rio Grande's honoree on the list was junior Marina Garcia Perez (Leon, Spain).
     The RSC Scholar-Athlete Team features those student-athletes who have at least a 3.25 GPA in the sport of women's basketball with at least one year at their current school.
     Representing the RedStorm were Darnell, Woods, Garcia-Perez, seniors Jocelyn Abraham (Exchange, WV) and Mindi Gregory (Athens, OH); juniors Harlei Antritt (Newark, OH) and Natalie Kalaydjiev (Vienna, Austria); and sophomores Marlee Grinstead (Albany, OH), Grace Forrest (Mechanicsburg, OH) and Morrisa Barcus (Bidwell, OH).