Cooke orders up another Athlete of the Week award

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the second time over the last five award cycles, Kenyon College’s Claudia Cooke was honored as the North Coast Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week for women’s basketball. 

Over a three-game stretch, Cooke helped the Owls win two games, opening the week with a 2-0 mark that included Kenyon’s first win against NCAC competition. The junior averaged team-highs of 15 points and 7.7 rebounds while shooting a team-best 60.6% from the floor and leading the squad with two blocked shots. 

Cooke opened the week with a 13-point, 12-rebound double-double in a 65-44 win at home over the University of Maine at Fort Kent, propelling the Owls to their largest win of the season and their seventh-highest all-time rebounding total (58). The forward followed that performance with a season-high 24 points at home against The College of Wooster two days later, finishing as the game’s leading scorer and tying for the team lead on the glass with nine rebounds. On a night when Kenyon’s other starters struggled to hit shots, Cooke converted 10 of 19 field goal attempts while adding two blocks on the defensive side to help give the edge to the Owls in a highly competitive 67-65 victory.

After adding another eight points and two boards over 18 minutes in a loss on the road to DePauw University, Cooke clocks in as the NCAC’s 10th-leading scorer at 12.2 points per game, and her 9.4 rebounds per game are the conference’s second-best mark. The Chesterfield, Missouri, native is also the NCAC’s third-most accurate free-throw shooter at 79% and averaged the fourth-most blocks with 1.4 per game.

Cooke and the Owls have three games scheduled for the week ahead as the team takes on NCAC-leading Wittenberg University (12-3, 4-0 NCAC) on the road before playing on consecutive days when Kenyon hosts Oberlin College (10-5, 3-1 NCAC) on Jan. 21 before heading to Allegheny College (7-8) on Jan. 22.