Kreitz and Howanski Named 2002 Women's Basketball Team Captains

by Sports Information
7/9/01

LANCASTER, PA -- Franklin & Marshall College head women's basketball coach Beth Elbon announced today that guards Amy Kreitz (Sr., Allentown, PA/Salisbury) and Lauren Howanski (Sr., Gap, PA/Pequea Valley) have been named team captains for the 2001-02 season.
A 2001 Women's Basketball Coach Association/Kodak and D3Hoops.com Women's Basketball Honorable Mention All-American, Kreitz became the first F&M women's basketball player to earn Centennial Conference Player of the Year laurels.
A two-time first-team All-CC point guard, Kreitz is only the fourth Diplomat to register a conference "MVP" season joining Anne Krumrine (1989), Cathy Belser (1990) and Carrie Bowen (1992, 1993) who earned Middle Atlantic Conference Southwest Player of the Year honors during their careers.
A member of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Southern Region First Team and WBCA/Kodak All-Region District 4 team, Kreitz is the tenth women's player in school history to record 1,000 points and was named a first-team All-CC team member for the second consecutive year. Her selection to the All Centennial Conference First Team marked her second straight year on the top squad and the third season the conference office has honored the Allentown native as she received an Honorable Mention nod as a freshman in 1999.
The 5'6" guard finished first in steals (3.72) and scoring per game (18.4), fifth in three-point field goal percentage (38.7), seventh in free-throw percentage (73.1) and 13th in three-pointers per game (1.16) in the Centennial Conference this year as F&M advanced to the ECAC Championship field before falling to CC foe Western Maryland in the opening round.
She joins Krumrine and Bowen as the only players in F&M history to record All-American women's basketball seasons. A 1989 and 1990 Kodak "Player of the Year" finalist and First Team All-American, Krumrine is the college's career scoring leader with 1,811 points. Bowen, a 1993 Honorable Mention All-American, ranks second with 1,686 career points.
In her three year career at F&M, Kreitz now stands at 1,139 career points, good for eighth place all-time at the college having displaced 1997 graduate Aurora Gonzalez's 1,034 during the 2001 season.
Further, in Kreitz's 74 career games with the Diplomats, she has registered 161 assists, 195 steals and 361 rebounds.
In 2001 alone, she would register 59 assists, 93 steals and 128 boards as the Diplomats advanced to the semi-finals of the Centennial Conference playoffs. In addition, she would record nine twenty point scoring nights, including a season high 26 twice. On January 3 versus nationally ranked and NCAA Division III Championship game participant Messiah, she would pour in 24 points to lead the Diplomats to a stunning 72-71 win, one of only four losses the Falcons (26-5) suffered during the regular season.
Joining Kreitz in the captaincy and the backcourt next season will be Howanski, who suffered a torn ACL with five games remaining in the 2000-01 season.
The junior guard would record six twenty point scoring nights in 2000-2001, including a three game stretch from December 10 through January 3 in which she tallied 81 points, an average of 27 points per game. She scored 29 points twice during the year (12/2 vs. Muhlenberg, 71-59 W; 1/3 at Messiah, 72-71 W) to barely miss becoming the eighth F&M women's player to score 30 points in a single game.
For the year, Howanksi would shoot 95-for-238 (39.9%) from the field, 28-68 (41.2%) from the three-point arc and 106-for-139 (76.3%) from the foul line. In addition, she registered a team high 76 assists and ranked second with 324 points behind Kreitz.
For her three-year career at Franklin & Marshall, Howanski has progressively raised her scoring average from 11.7 to 12.8 to 17.1 points per game.
She now stands at 898 career collegiate points, 102 short of joining Kreitz in the 1,000 point club.
The Diplomats concluded the 2001 season 17-8, 11-4 in Centennial Conference play, the eighth best season record for wins in the 27-year history of the sport at the college.