The Texas Tech women's basketball program held its annual end of the season banquet on Monday, and lone senior Katrisa O'Neal was the star of the evening.
O'Neal, the only senior on the Lady Raider squad during the 2000-01 season, was honored with a video clip of highlights from her four years with the team. She was also given the "Fighting Heart Award," which is voted on by her teammates.
"I just want to thank all of you for a great four years here,"she told the audience. "I've had some good times and played with some great girls. It's
been a great time for me at Tech."
Teammate Jia Perkins was given the "Most Valuable Player Award," also voted on by her teammates. She is the first freshman in the history of the program to be voted team MVP.
The banquet annually gives Tech fans a chance to celebrate the past Lady Raider season. Tech radio play-by-play personality Ryan Hyatt gave the welcome speech, with O'Neal handling the invocation.
After dinner, women's head coach Marsha Sharp introduced several special guests in the audience, including Tech president David Schmidly and men's head basketball coach Bob Knight.
Sharp went on to introduce each of the coaches and players from this year's team, giving a short, humorous anecdote about each player.
"Everyone of them continued to get better as the season went on, and as a coach, I have to love that," Sharp said of her players. "I just hope they were as much fun to watch as they were to coach.
"...And there's nothing we'd like better than to take all of you (the audience) along with us to San Antonio next year for the women's Final Four."
Following the presentation of the awards to O'Neal and Perkins, a season-highlight film was shown. The banquet ended with the post-game tradition of singing "The Matador Song."
Jeremy Cowen can be contacted at 766-8736 or cowen@lubbockonline.com.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]