NORFOLK, Va. (MEAC) – The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) has several finalists in athletics for the 2017 HBCU Awards presented by HBCU Digest.
North Carolina Central’s football team, which won the MEAC title outright this past season and represented the conference in the Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl, is a finalist for Men’s Team of the Year — as is the Hampton men’s basketball team, which finished fourth in the MEAC standings in 2016-17 and competed in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI).
Hampton is also nominated for Women’s Team of the Year; the Lady Pirates basketball team won the MEAC Tournament championship this past season, overcoming several key injuries to win 20 games and take the sixth such title in the tenure of head coach David Six.
Six is also a finalist for Male Coach of the Year. Vanessa Blair-Lewis, who led Bethune-Cookman to a 15-1 conference mark and the regular-season title in women’s basketball, is a finalist for Female Coach of the Year.
Hampton’s Malia Tate-DeFreitas, who ranks second in conference history in scoring, is a finalist for Female Athlete of the Year, while North Carolina A&T State’s Tarik Cohen — the reigning MEAC Offensive Player of the Year and a fourth-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears — is a finalist for the Male Athlete of the Year.
Savannah State’s cheerleading squad is a finalist for Women’s Team of the Year.
The seventh annual ceremony will be held July 14 in Washington, D.C.’s Gallup Building at 7 p.m.
