SPORTS BRIEFS

Sixers win yet another: award, that is It was announced yesterday that Philadelphia 76ers coach Larry Brown has won the NBA's Coach of the Year Award.

Brown led the Sixers to the top of the Eastern Conference with a 56-26 record in the regular season, the team's best mark in 16 years.

The Sixers won four awards this season, more than any other team in a single season in NBA history.

Allen Iverson was named the league's MVP, Aaron McKie won the Sixth Man of the Year Award, and Dikembe Mutombo was given the nod as Defensive Player of the Year.

Philadelphia takes a 1-0 lead heading into tonight's Eastern Conference Finals matchup at the First Union Center against the Milwaukee Bucks.

-- Kenny Feng

May's dominance in the Ivies recognized Over the past three months, Ivy League baseball teams have come to know the bat of Penn's Chris May.

And so has the Ivy Group, which named May the 2001 Ivy League Player of the Year last Friday.

The senior outfielder was recognized earlier this month with the Charles H. Blair Bat, an award May earned by hitting a league-leading .452 in Ancient Eight contests.

The unanimous first team All-Ivy selection drove in a Penn-record 55 RBI this season, surpassing Tom Olszak's former mark of 48 that had been untouched for 22 years.

May was especially stellar on March 28, when he collected four hits, scored four runs, and drove in nine en route to leading the Quakers to a 17-8 trouncing of Lafayette.

May's .455 overall batting average and 1.41 RBI per game were good enough for fourth in both categories in all of Division I.

-- K.F.

Three W. Lax players get All-Ivy nod On the heels of the Penn women's lacrosse team's first postseason appearance in 17 years comes a slew of awards for three members of the Quakers squad.

A trio of Red and Blue sophomores -- attacker Kate Murray, midfielder Crissy Book and defender Christy Bennett -- each earned second team All-Ivy honors. Bennett and Book also garnered Mid-Atlantic regional All-American accolades.

Murray was Penn's leading scorer in 2001, netting 31 goals with five assists.

Book, a second team regional All-American, added 20 more scores, including a hat trick in the Quakers 18-12 loss to Johns Hopkins in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship on May 12.

Bennett, a first team regional All-American, anchored a Penn defense that sliced its goals-against average from 11.2 per game in the 2000 season to just 8.8 per game this spring.

-- Andrew McLaughlin

M. Lax sends four players to All-Ivy team Four Penn men's lacrosse players were named to the 2001 All-Ivy team after helping the program to a .500 Ivy League finish for the first time since 1997.

Senior attacker Todd Minerley, junior defender Scott Marimow and sophomore midfielder Alex Kopicki were named second team All-Ivy, while senior attacker Kevin Cadin was an honorable mention selection.

Minerley, a senior attacker out of Plainview, N.Y., racked up 26 points off 16 goals and 10 assists. He ended his collegiate career ranked eighth all-time at Penn in points.

Marimow was an instrumental part of a Quakers defense that gave up just 9.6 goals per game against a lot of the nation's top offensive teams. The 6'1" defender led the team with 77 groundballs.

Kopicki, a 6'2" midfielder, played a big part in speeding up the Quakers' midfield transition. The native of Cockeysville, Md., scored a career-high 13 goals and also dished out four assists during the season.

Cadin led the Quakers in scoring this season, finding the back of the net a career-high 18 times during Penn's 2001 campaign, while also handing out 11 assists.

The 5'11" attacker managed to do all this in spite of sitting out the final two games of the season after tearing his ACL against Syracuse on April 21.

Cadin was at his best against Cornell when he scored four goals and picked up three assists against the Big Red.

The Quakers will certainly miss the two senior attackers who were 1-2 on the team in scoring.

-- K.F.

Baseball's dominance unanimous' in Ivies Three members of the Penn baseball team were given All-Ivy nods this season.

In addition to senior outfielder Chris May, sophomore Andrew McCreery was also unanimously named first team All-Ivy.

McCreery earned his distinction at the utility position. The native of Solana Beach, Calif., was both an outfielder and pitcher for the Quakers. He hit .379 and drove in 36 runs.

As the No. 1 starter in Penn's pitching rotation, McCreery tossed his way to a 5-2 record which included a no-hitter against Yale on April 8.

Sophomore Nick Italiano was named second team All-Ivy at second base. The native of Marlton, N.J., hit a team-leading 13 doubles and stole seven bases for the Quakers this season.

-- K.F.

Football fills vacant coaching position The Penn football team announced that Lester Pataki will take over as defensive assistant coach, a position left vacant by Mike Elko at the conclusion of the 2000 season.

Elko left to become the defensive coordinator at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point after coaching the Quakers for just one year.

Pataki, a 1993 Penn graduate, played on the Quakers' lightweight football team from 19'9-1992.

Pataki spent last season as the linebacker coach for Menlo College, and began his coaching career at Stanford where he served as an assistant secondary coach for two years.

-- K.F.

Quakers senior's lax career not over yet The one player the Penn women's lacrosse team is losing to graduation -- defender Amy Weinstein -- was one of 40 players nationwide selected to participate in the STX Festival Division I North/South senior All-Star game.

The native of Fairfax, Va., will play on the North squad.

Weinstein, a four-year starter, was one of just three Ivy League players chosen for this prestigious year-end game.

The other two Ancient Eight players are Ali Harper of Harvard and Julie Shaner of Princeton, both of whom will compete alongside Weinstein as North senior All-Stars.

The game, which is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m., is part of the STX Lacrosse Festival held this year on June 9 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The Festival will begin at 10:30 a.m., and include a total of seven matches. The matches feature All-Stars of all playing levels, ranging from grade schoolers to club players.

-- A.M.

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