Southeastern Hands Out Year End Honors

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern athletics held its annual award banquet on Monday night as teams handed out MVP honors, with Kevin Buckingham and Zach James sharing the Male Athlete of the Year honor while Katie Webb took home the Female Athlete of the Year award.
 
Softball's Destiny Riddle took home the Female Scholar Athlete of the Year award, while football's garrison Boling earned Male Scholar Athlete of the Year recognition.
 
On the men's side, Buckingham and James picked up honors after lifting both themselves and their teams to lofty positions.
 
Buckingham helped the men return to the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time since 2007 and led the Great American Conference in rebounding and was second in scoring.  He would go on to take home a pair of first team All-Central Region honors and was named an All-American by two different DII Basketball Publications as well as taking home Academic All-American honors.
 
James earned his second Male Athlete of the Year award after earning the honor a season ago and has picked up nearly where he left off last season.  He has climbed to a number three national ranking individually and has taken home five individual tournament titles this season and carries a scoring average of 69.97.
 
Webb was a first team All-GAC selection and an All-Central Region pick despite seeing an injury cut her season short.  She also became the first women's basketball player to earn Academic All-American recognition since joining the NCAA.  Webb led the GAC in scoring at over 20 points per game and was ranked in the top 10 in rebounding and assists.
 
All 12 sports handed out MVP honors as listed below:
Men's Basketball—Kevin Buckingham
Women's Basketball—Katie Webb
Cross Country—Rebekah Christman
Volleyball—Caitlin Cosby
Football—Seu Luafatasaga
Men's Tennis—Juan Scoppetta
Women's Tennis—Chiara Berg
Softball—Keeshia Thompson
Baseball—Joseph Cerda
Women's Track & Field—Skye Summers
Golf—Zach James
Rodeo
  Male—Will Martin
  Female—ShiAnn Henderson
 
The top academic student-athletes were also recognized, with the aforementioned Riddle and Boling taking home the top spots as Scholar Athletes of the year, with the following athletes rounding out the top five for each gender:
 
Men
Garrison Boling, Football
Danrich Kruger, Men's Tennis
Kellen Manek, Men's Basketball
Cody Reed, Golf
Austin Skinner, Football
 
Women
Destiny Riddle, Softball
Caitlin Cosby, Volleyball
MyKaela Wallace, Softball
Katie Webb, Women's Basketball
Elexis Watson, Softball
 
The 2019 Banquet also saw the creation of a new award called the Southeastern Legacy Award to be given to teams that best exhibit the core SE values throughout the year, with the inaugural honor going to the 2018-19 Southeastern Men's basketball team.
 
The Student Athlete Advisory Committee who planned and executed the year end banquet also recognized a series of awards ranging from best dancer to best coaching one liner. The banquet was hosted by a foursome of SAAC members in Grace Shehadeh, Chandler Kemp, Anthony Palmer and Myles Nesbitt.
 
The SAAC also handed out honors for the Fan of the Year which was awarded to Leigh Long, as well as awarding Wayne Jones with the Southeastern Faculty Award from athletics and awarding Keith Baxter with the Southeastern Faculty Award.