Women’s Basketball: Sims tabbed Academic All-American
Lauren Sims was named to the 2009-10 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Women’s Basketball Second Team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America on Tuesday.
The senior guard, who is also a 2009-10 Rhodes Scholar candidate, has maintained a 4.0 cumulative grade point average with a major in biology-physiology and minor in chemistry. Sims ranks second on the 49er all-time list in 3-point field goals made (158) and fourth in 3-point field goal percentage (37.4 percent).
The Fullerton native joins Shannon Smith (1988) and Dana Wilkerson (1990) as the 49ers’ only CoSIDA Women’s Basketball Academic All-Americans. Both Smith and Wilkerson earned third-team honors.
Baseball: Buckley attains new position
Long Beach State pitching coach Troy Buckley was named the team’s Associate Head Coach in addition to his current responsibilities, as announced Monday.
Buckley returned to LBSU after two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he was the Coordinator of Minor League Pitching. He worked with each minor league ballclub and planned the progress through the organization for every pitcher in the system.
During his previous tenure at LBSU from 2002-07, Buckley coached four current major leaguers in Andrew Carpenter, Jason Vargas, Cesar Ramos and Jered Weaver. He also oversaw a staff that never finished lower than 16th nationally in team ERA and finished in the top five three times, including 2005 when the team’s 2.53 ERA was the nation’s best.
Prior to arriving at The Beach in 2002, Buckley spent three years on the coaching staff for his alma mater, Santa Clara, working as the team’s hitting coach and recruiting coordinator. He also spent two years as a coach in the Montreal Expos organization, working as the hitting and third base coach for AAA Ottawa as well as the pitching coach for the Expos’ rookie league team.