Feb. 18, 2008

IRVING, Texas - Two outstanding individual performances last week allowed Conference USA to award co-women's basketball players of the week honors to Rice's Valeriya Berezhynska and Natasha Lacy of UTEP as announced by the league office Monday morning.

Berezhynska joined elite company Thursday as she recorded just the fifth triple-double in C-USA history. She also became the first Owl to achieve such a milestone when she dished out a career-best 10 assists to go along with 14 points and 12 rebounds in a road win at Tulane.

Lacy continues to lead UTEP to a flawless C-USA slate as the Miners picked up a pair of home wins last week to set a league record of 12-straight wins. Lacy averaged 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.0 steals and 4.0 assists per game in victories over Houston and Rice. In addition, UTEP has won a school and conference record 17-straight games and 21 of their past 22 contests.

CONFERENCE USA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CO-PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
NATASHA LACY, UTEP
5-10, Senior, Guard, El Paso, Texas
Lacy averaged 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.0 steals and 4.0 assists per game to lead UTEP to a pair of double-digit wins. She recorded 10 of her 12 points in the first half against Houston. She also had four steals, four rebounds and three assists against the Cougars. In the 65-53 win against Rice, Lacy led the way with a season-high 23 points, to go along with eight boards, four helpers, three steals and two blocks. Ten of those points came during the decisive 24-4 run in the second period to turn a one-point deficit into an eventual 19-point lead. She also added two late free throws to ice the contest, as the Owls had trimmed the deficit to nine points.

VALERIYA BEREZHYNSKA, RICE
6-4, Senior, Center, Nikolaev, Ukraine
Berezhynska made history last week by turning in the program's first career triple-double in a 78-73 win at Tulane on CSTV Thursday. She dished out a career-best 10 assists to go along with 14 points and 12 rebounds, becoming the second C-USA player this year and fifth in league history to produce a triple-double. The Ukraine native carried that momentum into the weekend by scoring 11 of her game-high 24 points in the opening half at No. 24 UTEP Saturday, giving Rice a 27-26 halftime advantage. Berezhynska ended the game hitting an 11-of-12 free throw attempts and collecting five rebounds. She averaged 19.0 points and 8.5 rebounds per game in her second weekend back from an injury that forced her to miss Rice's first eight conference games.

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