CIS athletes of the week (#16): Saint Mary’s Colley, Laurier’s Daniels honoured

OTTAWA (CIS) – Justine Colley, a basketball player from Saint Mary’s University, and Ryan Daniels, a hockey player from Wilfrid Laurier University, are the CIS female and male athletes of the week for the period ending Jan. 20, 2013.

Colley, a fourth-year commerce student from East Preston, N.S., averaged a remarkable 35 points per game last weekend as the AUS-leading Huskies defeated UNB 75-67 and StFX 94-57 to improve to 11-0 in league play and move up to a season-high No. 2 in the national rankings. The 5-foot-9 guard, who finished the two-game set with 70 points in 64 minutes of court time, tallied 39 points, five rebounds and seven steals in Friday’s win over the V-Reds before adding 31 points, seven boards and seven assists against the X-Women on Sunday. A two-time all-Canadian and CIS scoring champion, Colley once again leads the country this season with an average of 27.9 points per contest.

McGill hockey player Katia Clément-Heydra, Brock basketball player Nicole Rosenkranz and Calgary basketball player Jessica Franz were also nominated for the women’s award.

Daniels, a fourth-year business student from Pickering, Ont., turned aside 79 of 80 pucks fired his way to guide the Golden Hawks (10-10-2) to a pair of upset wins over the top two teams in the OUA West division, including a 2-0 shutout against nationally third-ranked Western (18-4), which was riding a 15-game winning streak going into the contest, and a 2-1 defeat of Windsor (15-7). The 6-foot-2, 225-pound netminder was perfect on 36 shots last Thursday versus the Mustangs and followed up with a 43-save performance against the Lancers on Saturday. Daniels, a veteran of five OHL campaigns (Saginaw, Peterborough) who was selected by Ottawa in the 2006 NHL draft, is the third Laurier student in as many weeks to be named CIS male athlete of the week, following basketball players Will Coulthard and Max Allin.

UNB hockey player Marc-Antoine Desnoyers and Manitoba volleyball player Dane Pischke were the other male nominees.

Female nominees:
AUS: Justine Colley, basketball, Saint Mary’s (recipient)
RSEQ: Katia Clément-Heydra, hockey, McGill
OUA: Nicole Rosenkranz, basketball, Brock
CWUAA: Jessica Franz, basketball, Calgary

Male nominees:
AUS: Marc-Antoine Desnoyers, hockey, UNB
RSEQ: RSEQ recipient not from a CIS-sanctioned sport
OUA: Ryan Daniels, hockey, Wilfrid Laurier (recipient)
CWUAA: Dane Pischke, volleyball, Manitoba

-CIS-