SIOUX FALLS, S.D.— First team all-Summit League picks Allison Arens and Ciara Duffy highlight a band of Coyotes featured within the 2019 Summit League Women's Basketball Awards announced Thursday by the league office.
 
Arens, USD's lone senior, joins alumna Nicole Seekamp as Coyotes who have been named first-team all-Summit three times. Duffy, a junior guard, is a two-time first-team honoree.
 
In addition, South Dakota took four of the six major awards the Summit League hands out. Arens was named Defensive Player of the Year, sophomore center Hannah Sjerven was both Sixth Woman of the Year and Transfer of the Year, and Dawn Plitzuweit is Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season.
 
Also featured within the awards is sophomore guard Chloe Lamb, who along with Sjerven are two of five picks for honorable mention. Sjerven is one of five on the all-Newcomer Team.
 
A 5-foot-10 do-it-all guard from Crofton, Nebraska, Arens is one of three players at South Dakota to tally more than 1,300 points, 500 rebounds and 300 assists in her career. She's eighth on USD's all-time scoring list and ranks in the career top-10 for assists and steals as well. Arens also holds five program records for free throws. She has 65 double-figure games in her career with 17 this season.
 
Arens becomes just the seventh player in program history to have earned all-conference honors three times dating back to when South Dakota joined the North Central Conference in 1981. She also becomes the third Coyote to be named the Summit's Defensive Player of the Year with USD leading the league in scoring defense for the second-straight year.
 
One of the most versatile players on the court and a native of Rapid City, South Dakota, Duffy can handle the point, play in the post and shoot from the NBA 3-point line. The junior guard has been picked to the first team for the second consecutive season, averaging 15 points, five rebounds and three assists. Duffy has led the Coyotes in scoring for nearly half of the games this season, reaching double-digits 22 times with eight games past 20 points. She has more than 1,200 points, 450 rebounds and 250 assists for her career.
 
Sjerven, hailing from Rogers, Minnesota, earned a plethora of awards in her first season at South Dakota. Sjerven came off the bench to average 11.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.4 steals per game. She led the Summit in blocked shots (54), ranked second in field-goal percentage (56.1), eighth in steals (43) and eighth in rebounds (166). She reached double figures in 12 of 16 Summit League games, finishing with 18 double-digit games on the year. Sjerven becomes the third-straight Coyote to pick up the Sixth Woman of the Year award, while she's the second USD player to be named the Transfer of the Year.
 
Lamb, a native of Onida, South Dakota, was an honorable mention selection while averaging nearly 10 points per game. She's tallied 76 rebounds, 49 assists and 25 steals this season. She tallied 12 of her 22 career double-figure games this season with a career high 23 points at Denver.
 
Plitzuweit takes home the Summit's Coach of the Year award for the second-straight year after leading the Coyotes into unprecedented territory. With the program's first two top-25 wins during nonconference play, South Dakota made its way into the Associated Press Top 25 and the USA Today Coaches Poll for the first time in history. The Coyotes' 26 overall wins is the program's best regular season mark in the Division I era. Plitzuweit becomes the first South Dakota head coach to reach 20 wins in three-straight seasons, let alone her first three at the helm.
 
No. 25 South Dakota (26-4) enters the Summit League Tournament as the second seed, opening with North Dakota State in the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
 
2019 Summit League Women's Basketball Awards
 
First Team
Allison Arens, South Dakota
Lakota Beatty, Oral Roberts
Ciara Duffy, South Dakota
Madison Guebert, South Dakota State
Lexi Klabo, North Dakota
Macy Miller, South Dakota State

Second Team
Taylor Higginbotham, Western Illinois
Olivia Kaufmann, Western Illinois
Tagyn Larson, South Dakota State
Maya Mayberry, Oral Roberts
Madison Nelson, Denver

Honorable Mention
Chloe Lamb, South Dakota
Lauren Loven, Denver
Samantha Romanowski, Denver
Myah Selland, South Dakota State
Hannah Sjerven, South Dakota

All-Newcomer Team
Paiton Burckhard, South Dakota State
Mariah Murdie, Omaha
Danni Nichols, Western Illinois
Sh'Toya Sanders, Purdue Fort Wayne
Hannah Sjerven, South Dakota

Player of the Year
Macy Miller, South Dakota State

Defensive Player of the Year
Allison Arens, South Dakota

Sixth Woman of the Year
Hannah Sjerven, South Dakota
 
Freshman of the Year
Danni Nichols, Western Illinois
 
Transfer of the Year
Hannah Sjerven, South Dakota
 
Coach of the Year
Dawn Plitzuweit, South Dakota