Dakota State's Sara Nelson, a 6'2" senior center from Dell Rapids, SD, has been honored for the second consecutive year by the NAIA as Academic All-American.  This award honors both excellence in the classroom and on the basketball court.  In receiving this honor, Nelson maintained a minimum 3.5 GPA in her degree field of Exercise Science and was also named to the Dakota Athletic Conference All-Conference 3rd team.

     In her senior season, Sara helped the Lady T's to both the DAC regular season and tournament championships, and receive their second straight bid to the NAIA National Tournament.  Additionally, Sara finished an outstanding career with DSU by becoming the 12th leading scorer with 1029 points.  Sara left her mark in a number of DSU records, including:

     ►  5th career freethrows 239
     ►  10th single season freethrows 87
     ►  7th single game freethrows 7
     ►  2nd single game freethrow percentage  100%  11-11
     ►  3rd Career Blocked Shots  151
     ►  4th Single Season Blocked Shots 48

     The 2006-07 Lady T's broke team records in total wins (21), consecutive wins (7), total points (2364), points per game (73.9), and single game points (101).
 
      Over 220 women's basketball players from across the country have been named 2007 Daktronics-NAIA Women's Basketball All-American.  Student-athletes must be nominated by their head coach, have achieved junior academic status and maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale.

     Nelson is the daughter of Larry and Mary Nelson of Dell Rapids, SD.

     The complete listing of 2007 Daktronics-NAIA Women's Basketball
All-American can be found on this web site: 

     http://naia.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl-div2/spec-rel/0312-7aaf.html.