Mercer's Lawrence, Bagrou sweep Southern Conference athlete of the year honors; all-sports race update
The Sports Report of Central Georgia
centralgasports@gmail.com
Sweeps in sports are good.
And Mercer swept, big time.
Mercer women’s basketball player Kahlia Lawrence and men’s soccer player Will Bagrou were named the Southern Conference’s female and male athletes of the year.
They will be honored at the league’s annual Honors Dinner Tuesday night in Hilton Head, S.C..
It’s only the second time one school has swept the honors, Mercer joining ETSU in 1990-91, when basketball players Mister Jennings and Nicole Hopson did it.
Bagrou is the rare repeat honoree, and is in rare air. The last male athlete to repeat? NBA star Steph Curry, who did it in 2007-08 and 08-09. Bagrou is the ninth repeat winner for an award first given in 1947-48. Last year, he was also the first male soccer player to win it.
One major thing the two Bears have in common is getting drafted by their sports top pro organization, Bagrou going 75th to Kansas City in the MLS draft. Lawrence followed that up by being the 24th pick of the WNBA draft, by Minnesota, and then being traded to Las Vegas.
Bagrou was the SoCon leader in points, goals, game-winning goals, all en route to the conference player of the year award and Mercer’s second straight tournament title.
He has a 3.18 GPA, and graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship.
Lawrence became the first women’s basketball player to earn conference player of the year three times, leading the Bears to their first conference tournament title, along the way winning 27 straight games and making both major polls.
She averaged 19.3 points and was in the SoCon top 10 in five different categories. She helped Mercer to a win at North Carolina last season, and was the Atlanta Tipoff Club’s women’s player of the year in the state for the second straight time.
Lawrence graduated with a degree in communication studies and a 3.0 GPA.
Both were also heavily involved in community service during their years in Macon.
Mercer finished in the middle of the pack in the male and female sports races.
The women were fourth in the Germann Cup with a 7.25 percentage and the men fifth in the Commissioner’s Cup with a .585.
Scoring is on a percentage basis with the top seven sports for each school. The conference sponsors 22 sports. Each sport is worth 10 points, the finishing in the standings balanced on the number of teams competing in that sport. There is a bonus for winning the conference tournament in a sport.
Mercer’s men’s tennis runner-up finish helped the Bears make a big jump in the spring. The sizzling women’s basketball season plus a conference-winning lacrosse team bumped the women up substantially as well.
Six schools have won the men’s race and five the women’s.
Commissioner’s Cup (through spring sports)
(Men’s athletics)
1. ETSU 0.893
2. Samford 0.767
3. Furman 0.757
4. UNCG 0.755
5. Mercer 0.585
6. Wofford 0.573
7. Western Carolina 0.561
8. Chattanooga 0.456
9. The Citadel 0.427
10. VMI 0.424
Germann Cup (through spring sports)
(Women’s athletics)
1. Furman 0.949
2. Samford 0.826
3. ETSU 0.784
4. Mercer 0.725
5. UNCG 0.673
6. Chattanooga 0.624
7. Western Carolina 0.549
8. Wofford 0.470
9. VMI 0.296
10. The Citadel 0.185