Tuesday, March 4, 2003
ZALESKI NAMED COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
ANNVILLE, PA --- Sophomore forward Brandon Zaleski (Hackettstown, NJ/ Hackettstown
HS) of the Moravian College men’s basketball team has been named the 2003
Commonwealth Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Year, and Zaleski earned
a spot on the All-Conference First Team announced Tuesday.
Joining Zaleski on the All-Conference First Team were senior Darren
Pugh and sophomore J.D. Byers of Lebanon Valley College, senior Jon English from Elizabethtown
College and junior Chris Zimmerman of Susquehanna University. Messiah College freshman
Gian Paul Gonzalez was honored as the Commonwealth Rookie of the Year while Susquehanna
head coach Frank Marcinek was named the Commonwealth Coach of the Year.
Zaleski has helped the Greyhounds post a 16-10 overall record and a
return to the postseason for the first time since the 1996-97 season. Moravian lost to
eventual Commonwealth champion Elizabethtown College, 71-62, in the Commonwealth Semifinals,
and the Greyhounds will compete in the 2003 Eastern College Athletic Conference Southern
Championships beginning Wednesday, March 5th in a quarterfinal game at top seeded Franklin & Marshall
College. Tip-off is slated for 7:00 p.m. Moravian is seeded eighth in the tournament, and
the Greyhounds are making their first appearance in the ECAC since winning the tournament
in 1984.
Zaleski leads the Greyhounds in scoring at 18.4 points per game and
in rebounding at 7.5 boards a contest. Both numbers rank Zaleski second
in the Commonwealth Conference. Zaleski also has a team high 11 blocked
shots and he has contributed 34 steals, 22 assists and ten three-pointers. Zaleski is
shooting 49.7 percent (179 of 360) from the floor, 38.5 percent (10 of 26) behind the three-point
line and 84.1 percent (111 of 132) at the foul line. He is ninth in the Commonwealth in
field goal percentage and fourth in free throw percentage.
In 51 career games, Zaleski has moved within 44 points of becoming the
17th player in Moravian history to score 1,000 points and possibly the first to reach the
milestone as a sophomore. Zaleski has also won numerous awards in his
career including being named the Commonwealth Conference Rookie of the Year and a Second
Team All-Conference selection a year ago. This season, Zaleski has been
named the Lehigh Valley Small College Men’s Basketball Player of the Year, the Most
Valuable Player of the Emmanuel (MA) Tap-Off Tournament and to the All-Tournament Team
at the Greyhound Rock Classic.
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