News > Girls' News
12/25/02 Fairport's Stacy Schrader is Tops
in Blocks
| December 25, 2002 By Chris Wagner Staff writer
Syracuse Post-Standard The 6-foot-2½ willowy center with never-ending arms is an all-around player with a particular specialty. She blocks shots. Many, many shots. She has deflected more than a half dozen per game this year. Last season, she redirected 159 - the most of any woman in the nation, and more than all but one man. |
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Schrader has earned nicknames - "Spider,"
"Monkey" and "Go-Go Gadget" - for her specialty and wingspan that reaches 6
feet, 7 inches, but they don't do her justice. She deserves something far more
special, more regal.
Call her the Sultaness of Swat.
That's a title worthy of a person able to block 13 shots in a single game, which
Schrader did last month against Bridgewater State. It's a distinction that
describes a player who, with 46 blocks in the Dolphins' first seven games (6.6
per game), has a chance to break the all-time single-season shot-blocking record
(219) for all NCAA divisions, women or men.
The magnitude of her feat produces more wide shoulder-shrugging acknowledgment
than surprise from Schrader, who has been the queen of deflection since her high
school days in the Rochester suburb of Fairport.
"A lot of times I just go straight up and the ball is right there," said
Schrader, who grudgingly gives credit to her arms as her best basketball asset.
"As much as I dread my arm length when I go to buy clothes, it does help out a
lot," said Schrader, whose wingspan is five inches longer than what is
considered average (arm span tends to equal a person's height).
But blocking shots is more than about having long arms.
© 2002 The Post-Standard.
source: http://www.syracuse.com/sports/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/104080923746715.xml