Tuesday, February 4, 2020

PORTLAND, Ore. – With the spring sports season officially underway, GNAC Insider returns Tuesday at 7 p.m. (PT). Among the episode’s guests are two standouts on the hardwood and a softball player off to a great start in her junior campaign.

The GNAC’s leading scorer in men’s basketball, Alaska junior guard Shadeed Shabazz joined the show. Shabazz landed in Fairbanks after playing two seasons at Iowa Western Community College, and it didn’t take him long to become one of the more prolific scorers in the conference.

A two-time GNAC Men’s Basketball Player of the Week in the 2019-20 season, Shabazz is averaging 25.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game and ranks third in the conference with a .874 free throw percentage. He has scored 30 or more points in eight games this season, including a GNAC season-high 43 points in the Nanooks’ 116-111 double-overtime victory over Concordia on Dec. 7, making him just the 15th player in GNAC history to score 43 points or more in a game.

A recent inductee into the 1,000-point club, Northwest Nazarene senior guard Avery Albrecht joined the show. Albrecht crossed the 1,000-point plateau in her collegiate career after scoring 12 points in the Nighthawks’ 63-53 win over Western Oregon on Jan. 23. She is the 28th player in program history to reach the milestone.

Albrecht ranks third in the GNAC in scoring with 15.6 points per game while also ranking sixth with a .385 three-point field goal percentage, seventh with 1.8 steals per game, ninth with a .500 field goal percentage and 14th with 5.6 rebounds per game. The Nighthawks have won four straight games and sit in second place with a 10-2 conference mark (15-5 overall), one game behind first-place Alaska Anchorage.

In her junior campaign on the diamond, Saint Martin’s junior outfielder Emery Norwood also joined the show. Norwood started in 32 games as a sophomore, batting .337 with 29 hits, 23 runs and seven RBI to earn Second Team All-GNAC honors.

The Saints opened their 2020 season with a 4-1 record at the 11th annual Desert Stinger, hosted by Montana State Billings at Majestic Park in Las Vegas. Norwood led the Saints in the tournament as she batted .611 with 11 hits, nine runs, two doubles, two RBI, four walks and nine stolen bases. She was one of six GNAC players to land on the all-tournament team.

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