Area sportswomen honored at WHAM Awards luncheon

At the 27th Annual WHAM Sportswomen of the Year Awards Luncheon April 25 several area female athletes and contributors to women's sports were honored for 2004-05.

Local high school, college and at-large WHAM Sportswomen of the Year Awards were presented. The criteria for their selection was athletic excellence from April 2004 through March 2005, overall career athletic achievements, and academic performance.

Jennifer Stuczynski, a graduate student in Roberts Wesleyan College's School of Psychology, was the recipient of the WHAM College Sportswoman of the Year Award. She was a four-year starting guard/forward for the Raiders' basketball team and is currently completing a four-year all-events track and field career.

During the 2004-05 indoor track season, she won the U.S. Indoor National Championship in the pole vault with a 14' 3-1/4" jump (second best by an American in 2005) on the way to being a four-time National Champion and eight-time All-American in the 55-meter hurdles, high jump, triple jump, long jump, and pole vault at the NAIA and National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) Nationals. During the 2004 outdoor track season, she was the NCCAA 100-meter hurdles National Champion on the way to becoming a four-time All-American in the javelin and pole vault at the NAIA and NCCAA Nationals.

In 2003-04, she completed her basketball career averaging 24.3 ppg, earning NCCAA National Player of the Year and NAIA Third Team All-American honors, and setting her school career scoring record with 1819 points. Stuczynski, a Fredonia, New York resident who earned her undergraduate Psychology degree last May with a dean's list 3.37 overall grade point average, is Roberts Wesleyan's first recipient of the WHAM Award

The WHAM Luncheon also presented awards to those who have made special contributions to local women's sporting activities.

•The Jan Giambrone Service Award (for an exemplary lifetime commitment by a female to local women's sports) recipient was Kathy Boughton, Brockport High School Girls Varsity Basketball Coach.

•During the WHAM Luncheon, the Heart of Gold Children's Foundation, which is the event's charitable beneficiary, awarded four designated gifts totaling $4,500 to local youth organizations in surprise podium check presentations.

•The CYO Athletic Equipment Fund at Our Mother of Sorrows School awarded a check for $1500 in the names of Kathy Boughton and her late mother Patricia Boughton. Kathy Boughton attended our Mother of Sorrows School and played in its CYO Sports program as a seventh and eight grader.