Leedham Named NE-10
Freshman of the Week
Ellesmere Port, England, native runs award
streak to six-straight weeks

RINDGE, N.H. (January 2, 2007) – Franklin Pierce women’s basketball standout Johannah Leedham (Ellesmere Port, England/Cheshire Academy) has been named the Northeast-10 Conference Freshman of the Week by the Conference office this afternoon.

            Leedham, who has now collected Freshman of the Week honors all six weeks of Franklin Pierce’s season, has also earned Player of the Week honors four times this year – including a string of three-straight.

            Leedham averaged 20 points, 7.7 rebounds, 6.0 steals and 2.7 assists to lead Franklin Pierce to a 3-0 mark over the holidays. She shot 50-percent (17-of-34) from the field and converted 26-of-36 (72.2%) attempts from the free-throw line during the reporting period and broke two school records in the process.

Leedham nearly single-handedly led the Ravens to a 67-60 non-conference victory over Molloy College on December 20, scoring 30 of her game-high 35 points after halftime and broke the school’s single-game free-throw record by hitting 19 of 23 attempts (9-9 in overtime). She also added ten rebounds, three steals and two assists. She broke the previous record of 17 made free-throws set by Gail Harris against Eastern Nazarene College on January 29, 1983, and matched by Leedham herself in a win at No. 25 College of Saint Rose on December 9.

Leedham led the Ravens to a pair of wins at the Doubletree Guest Suites Holiday Classic, hosted by Lynn University. She notched her seventh double-double of the season with a school-record 11 steals to go with a game-high 13 points and team-high totals of five rebounds and five assists in the Ravens 79-49 victory over Northwood (Fla.) University. Leedham shattered the previous steals record of seven accomplished twice by Tricia O’Brien in the span of a month in 1985. Leedham also totaled 12 points, eight rebounds and four steals in Friday’s 55-47 win over New York Institute of Technology.

Leedham has been the story in the Northeast-10 through Franklin Pierce’s first 13 games, scoring 20-plus points in all but three games, reaching 30 points four times, and recording seven double-doubles. She leads the Northeast-10 in scoring, averaging 25 points, to go with a Conference-best 4.2 steals, 8.3 rebounds (4^th), 3.5 assists (12^th) and 1.2 blocks (6^th) per game. She is fifth in the NE-10 in three-point percentage (.413) and field goal percentage (.533) and eighth in free-throw percentage (.810). In eight NE-10 games, Leedham is averaging 27.3 points (1^st), 8.5 rebounds (4^th), 4.1 assists (7^th), 4.0 steals (1^st) and 1.5 blocks (3^rd).

Franklin Pierce (11-2, 7-1 NE-10), among teams receiving votes in this week’s USA Today/ESPN/WBCA Division II poll, is back home tomorrow night when it hosts 19^th-ranked American International College at 5:30 p.m.