Women's Basketball

CLU's Mallen Chosen As SCIAC Representative for 2006 NCAA Woman of Year Award
July 25, 2006

Los Angeles, California - Alexandra Mallen of California Lutheran University was chosen as the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's nominee for the 2006 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Mallen (Newbury Park, CA) graduated from CLU in 2006 with a cumulative 3.88 GPA and departmental honors as a double major in Marketing Communications and Psychology.

Her career goal is to work in Sports Marketing, a field she has been involved with on numerous levels for the past two years. Not only has she made great strides toward achieving her career goals, but in the process, Mallen has been involved at CLU both academically and athletically and locally in the community from day one.

During her four years at CLU, Mallen has been a part of ASCLU (student government), a Resident Assistant, and CLU Presidential Scholar, Dean's List, and Scholar Athlete Society member. Her involvement stretches beyond the CLU campus as she has also taken part in leadership organizations such as the Student Ambassador Circle, Student Athlete Advisory Committee Director, and member of the Omicron Delta Kappa. Additionally, Mallen has volunteered internationally as she was part of an Orphanage Outreach Service trip to the Dominican Republic.

On the basketball court Alex has been a leader as well. A four year captain and starter for the Regals, she led the program from a 4-21 season her freshman season to back-to-back SCIAC championships her junior and senior years. Her hard work and efforts on the court were rewarded in her final season as she was named to the First Team All-SCIAC for the first time in 2005-06.

The 5'5" point guard and guard for the Regals was second on the team with 11.8 points per game and she also averaged 4.6 assists per game and 4.0 rebounds per game. For two years Mallen led the SCIAC Conference in assists to turnover ratio as well as being in the top three in assists per game.

Mallen capped off her career by finishing among the top eight players in SCIAC in four categories (2nd in free throws, 4th in scoring, 6th in field goal percentage and 8th in steals).

Mallen has taken her basketball skills and love of the game to the local youth where she has spent countless hours as a coach, trainer and counselor for female basketball players ranging in age from 8-18.

"Alex exemplifies student-athlete," stated Kristy Hopkins, head coach. "She has had her foot in every piece of this university and we have been so fortunate to have her here for four years at Cal Lutheran University."

CLU will be seeing more of Mallen as she will be working alongside Hopkins for the 2006-07 basketball campaign.

"I am very lucky she will be staying around to help out the Regal Basketball program next year."

She is currently using her marketing and publicity skills in conjunction with her athletic administration background as she begins her career in the Sports Marketing field, where she has extensive experience already. Mallen has worked as a marketing representative for Clif Bar Inc., as the Athletics Marketing Coordinator at California Lutheran University, and held internships in marketing (Dallas Cowboys and Michael Epstein Sports Productions), publicity (Warner Brothers Records) and sports broadcasting (IBSU.net) since 2004.

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors senior student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics experience, service and leadership. The 2006 Woman of the Year selection committee will select the top 10 winners in each division. From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the top three in each division. Finally, the members of the CWA will vote from among the top nine to determine the 2006 NCAA Woman of the Year. The top 10 honorees from Divisions I, II and III will be honored and the 2006 NCAA Woman of the Year announced, at a dinner in Indianapolis October 28, 2006.