Atlanta Tipoff Club taps Mercer's Gardner

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          One Division I women’s basketball team in the state of Georgia made the NCAA Tournament this year.

          One has made the NCAA Tournament two straight years. Only one won its regular-season and tournament title this year, again.

          It’s the team run by the Atlanta Tipoff Club’s Georgia College Women’s Coach of Year, Mercer’s Susie Gardner.

          The group announced its year-end award-winners on Wednesday: players of the year Tookie Brown of Georgia Southern for the men and Caliya Robinson of Georgia for the women, and former Georgia State head coach Ron Hunter as the men’s coach of the year.

          “I am humbled and appreciative to be recognized by the Atlanta Tipoff Club for this amazing honor,” Gardner said in a school release. “Although this appears to be an individual award, the record-breaking season that our team had this year would not have occurred without my staff. Ben (Wierzba), Kaitlyn (Cresencia) and Sydni (Means) worked tirelessly on and off the court by navigating through all the challenges of the season.

          “We are all appreciative to those that work behind the scenes that are never recognized publicly, but our staff knows who those individuals are. Our senior class is the reason for the on-court success, as they led by example and showed our younger players what the ‘Mercer Way’ looks like.”

          Gardner’s ninth season at Mercer ended with an impressive 66-61 loss at Iowa in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last week, putting the Bears at 25-7, eight more wins than any other Division I team in the state and the third straight 25-win season.

          Mercer has beaten Southern Conference competition for two straight years, en route to four consecutive regular-season titles. She has been the SoCon coach of the year three times in four years, and is the first repeat honoree since 2010-11.