NAPERVILLE, Ill. – NJIT women's volleyball player Sabrina Baby is one of two winners of the Great West Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee's inaugural sportsmanship award, the conference office announced Thursday.
The SAAC Sportsmanship Award was established as an initiative to assist in promoting the ideals of sportsmanship throughout the Conference. The GWC Sportsmanship Award is presented to two student-athletes each academic year who display the best sporting behavior or generally conduct him/herself with a high degree of character and good sportsmanship.
Baby, a native of Brazil, who plays libero, was the NCAA Division I national individual leader with 6.27 digs per set (608 digs, 97 sets).
The 5-foot-5 senior became the first Highlander student-athlete in any sport to receive Academic All-America honors at the Division I level with a 3.91 cumulative grade point average as a business major with a concentration in finance and marketing.
Baby was named Great West Conference Defensive Player of the Year, starting all 27 matches for NJIT, recording double-figures in each contest. She holds the NJIT Division I school-record for digs in a four-set match (45) and digs in a five-set match with (42).
Some community service projects that Baby has been involved with at NJIT are: Side-Out Foundation (help raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness), Jersey Cares (cleaning local parks and planting trees), 24-hour relay sponsored by SAAC (raise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and Make-A-Wish-Foundation).
Baby stated, “Good sportsmanship comes with maturity and in order to understand the beauty of the game, I needed to respect the strength of my opponents, referees and all personnel involved in the match.”
University of North Dakota's baseball player Jabby Bakhit earned the honor, leading by example and giving 100 percent on the field while playing with the highest respect for the game.
This season, Bakhit is batting .280 (28-for-100) with two doubles and 14 run batted in. The second baseman leads the Fighting Sioux with 106 assists.
