2019-20 Men's Basketball News
Nate Cole, Edison State Community College Director of Athletics & Student Life, was voted as the Michael Rickard OCCAC Athletics Director of the Year for 2019-20. This accolade comes after Cole guided the Chargers to their first OCCAC All-Sports Award in school history.
Edison State Community College (D-II) and Owens Community College (D-III) are the 2019-20 OCCAC All-Sports Award winners. This season marks the first in which honorees were selected for both D-II and D-III.
The Ohio Community College Athletic Conference has named individuals from seven sports as the 2019-20 Scholar-Athletes of the Year. In addition, 23 OCCAC student-athletes earned a spot on the ’19-20 All-Sportsmanship Team.
A swap to virtual learning during the Spring ’20 semester did little to derail the academic success of many student-athletes across the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference. The complete list of OCCAC Academic All-Conference laurels is below. To qualify, a student-athlete must achieve a 3.30 GPA or higher while completing at least six credit hours (credit hour qualification reduction for this semester only due to COVID-19).
Five Ohio Community College Athletics Conference basketball student-athletes received NJCAA All-America recognition for the 2019-20 season, highlighted by Lakeland’s Armani Jackson garnering First Team (D-II) laurels.
Following the recent recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the NJCAA has made the difficult decision to cancel all upcoming basketball championships as well as spring competition, effective immediately.
The Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC) recognized 22 student-athletes as All-OCCAC First and Second Team honorees on Tuesday (March 10). Lakeland’s Armani Jackson and Tyreke Johnson highlight the group as the 2019-20 OCCAC Players of the Year. Tim McMahon of Edison State earned Women’s Coach of the Year while Terry Bowe brought Men’s Coach of the Year laurels back to Lakeland. OCCAC honorable mention, all-defensive team and all-districts honors were also dispersed.
Five OCCAC student-athletes have been selected as the Basketball Players of the Week for Feb. 24-March 1, the final honoree group of the 2019-20 season.
The quartet of OCCAC Basketball honorees this week, Dominique Camp (Sinclair), Melia Walder (Columbus State), James Graham (Cuyahoga) and Elijah Bishop (Columbus State), have combined for 13 Player of the Week awards in total with 12 coming this season. The pair of Cougars has each earned four recognitions, including back-to-back-to-back for Bishop.
The Ohio Community College Athletic Conference has selected the men’s basketball All-Decade Team for the 2010’s and it includes 21 honorees, all of which were NJCAA All-Americans. Eight different institutions are represented with Lakeland’s five recipients pacing the conference.
The Columbus State Basketball duo of Melia Walder and Elijah Bishop earned OCCAC D-III Player of the Week accolades for games played Feb. 10-16 while Maddy Bakosh and Ronnie Hampton III of Edison State Community College are the D-II recipients.
Nate Ward from Sinclair Community College has earned his first career OCCAC Player of the Week award after a 2-0 week for the Tartan Pride. Allison Siefring (Edison State) corrals her league-leading fifth D-II weekly accolade of the season while Columbus State’s Elijah Bishop and Mickale Bates are the D-III recipients once again.
Four student-athletes rose to the top last week (Jan. 27-Feb. 2) and have been voted as the OCCAC Basketball Players of the Week. Rayonna Peterson (Lakeland) and Tyrek Battle-Holley (Cuyahoga) drew the D-II honors to northeast Ohio while across the state Owens’ Shyah Wheeler and Jacob Cousino hauled in D-III accolades.
Player of the week nominations flooded in to the OCCAC office for the week of Jan. 20-26 and four individuals emerged from the large pool of quality candidates. Four different institutions are represented as Brandon Hardin (Clark State), Donovan Saine (Hocking College), Allison Siefring (Edison State) and Mickale Bates (Columbus State) earned the OCCAC accolades.
Three hoopers were honored as the OCCAC Basketball Players of the Week for Jan. 13-19). Two come from Edison State in Audra Schaub and Reko Bagley, Jr., as the D-II winners while Nia Johnson brings D-III accolades back to Columbus State.
The first full week of competition for 2020 brought a plethora of nominations for OCCAC Player of the Week and four student-athletes stood out above the rest. Armani Jackson (Lakeland) and Ronnie Hampton (Edison State) are the D-II winners while the Columbus State tandem of Melia Walder and Corey Baker earned D-III recognition.
