Lacey Willis Earns First-Team All-PBC Women's Basketball Honors

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Armstrong Atlantic State senior forward Lacey Willis has been named to the 2008-09 All-Peach Belt Conference Women's Basketball First Team, announced today on the eve of the 2009 PBC Tournament by league officials. Willis will lead the fourth-seeded Lady Pirates into action in the PBC Quarterfinals on Thursday, March 5, against fifth-seeded Lander at 3:00 p.m. in Aiken, S.C.

It is the first All-PBC honor for the Dublin, Ga., native as Willis is one of the six first-team honorees in 2008-09 for the Lady Pirates. Willis joins USC Aiken's Morgan Johnson, North Georgia's Syretha Marble, Francis Marion's Kevina Ransom and Shannon Singleton-Bates, as well as Columbus State's Phebe Smith on the first team. Smith was named PBC Player of the Year.

Willis currently ranks third in the Peach Belt in scoring (17.0 ppg) and sixth in rebounding (8.2 rpg) despite playing most of the spring with a broken right (shooting) hand. A four-time PBC Player of the Week this year, Willis moved into fifth place on AASU's all-time scoring chart this past week and now has scored 1,223 points in her AASU career.

Willis is the fourth straight AASU women's basketball player to earn first-team All-Conference honors, following in the footsteps of Kaneetha Gordon (2006-07 and 2007-08) and Audosha Kelley (2005-06), and returns to Aiken this week to try to lead the Lady Pirates to a second straight PBC Tournament championship berth. Willis earned All-PBC Tournament honors a year ago in helping AASU to the 2008 PBC Tournament Championship game, the third championship game appearance for Lady Pirate basketball.

If the Lady Pirates advance past Lander on Thursday, they would face the winner of No. 1 seed Francis Marion and the UNC Pembroke/North Georgia victor on Saturday, March 7, at 2:00 p.m. The 2009 PBC Championship game will take place on Saturday, March 8, at 2:00 p.m.