By COREY MCMULLEN
The world is in a place that none of us is used to, with the cancellation of all sporting events and types of social gatherings across the globe.
This includes the Pima Community College women’s basketball team’s 2020 season. The Aztecs were supposed to play in the NJCAA regional tournament in March. The original plan was for the tournament to just be postponed to the end of April, but with no signs of the COVID-19 pandemic slowing down, the tournament and the Aztecs’ season officially was canceled.
With the season being over, the end-of-season honors were announced. Aztec head coach Todd Holthaus was honored with Region I West District Coach of the Year. This is the sixth time coach Holthaus was honored with the award (2009, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2019).
“This season will go down as one of my most memorable for many reasons. However, the thing that’s most satisfying was the efforts of the group as a whole,” Holthaus said. “We had a lot of unknowns in terms of personnel. One starter, a couple with limited playing time, and a big group of untested freshmen. The coaches did an amazing job preparing them and game by game, they got better.
“The only unfinished business was the trip to Nationals, where I believe we had a real chance to make a run. I couldn’t be prouder of the players or the coaches. It was a great season to be an Aztec.”
Holthaus was not the only one from the Aztecs to earn end of the season honors. A sophomore forward, Hallie Lawson, was named the first team NJCAA Division II All-American. She became the 15th NJCAA All-American in the program’s history. Lawson was named ACCAC Division II Player of the Year, first team All-ACCAC and first team All-Region I, Division II.
She played and started in all 31 games as she led the Aztecs in average minutes (28.7), points (13.5) and rebounds (7.0) per game. Her season-high was 22 points on two occasions, and she scored more than 15 points in 13 games this season. Lawson played in all 67 games for her Pima career making 57 starts. Her career-high was 35 points on Dec. 12, 2018 at Tohono O’odham Community College.
Lawson joined Jessie Ingraham (2008), Tia Morrison (2009, 2010), Abyee Maracigan (2009, 2010), Deanna Daniels (2011), A’jha Edwards (2013), Raja Moreno-Ross (2014), Sydni Stallworth (2016, 2017), Jacqulynn Nakai (2018, 2019) and Shauna Bribiescas (2019).