BATON ROUGE — LSU All-American Sylvia Fowles and her Final Four Coach Van Chancellor, along with Anne Farrell of Centenary and UNO’s Brittany Helm earned top honors on the 2008 Louisiana Sports Writers Association All-Louisiana Women’s College Basketball team announced on Monday.

Fowles was named the Player of the Year in the state while Chancellor was named the Coach of the Year. Farrell was voted the Freshman of the Year and Helm was the choice for first-year Louisiana non-freshman, earning Newcomer of the Year honors.

The team was chosen based on nominations from the sports information directors of women’s college basketball teams and then voted on by a media panel of LSWA members. Each voter was asked to select in order 15 players with 15 being their top selection.

On the first team with Fowles were LSU teammates Quianna Chaney and Erica White along with the outstanding NAIA player Trenese Smith of Loyola and JoKeirra Sneed of Louisiana Tech.

Fowles, the SEC Player of the Year and consensus All-America, was almost a unanimous selection to the team and as the POY. Fowles collected 282 of a possible 285 votes, collected the top vote of 15 on 18 of the 19 ballots turned in to the LSWA. Fowles was a finalist for the Naismith Trophy, the Wade Trophy and the John Wooden Award. The senior finished as the SEC’s all-time rebounder, finishing with an SEC record 83 double doubles. In 2008, she scored in double figures in 31 games and on Nov. 21 became the sixth woman to dunk in a college basketball game. The Miami product just missed a double double averaging 17.2 points per game and 9.9 rebounds a game while making 60 percent from the field with 1.6 blocks per game.

Farrell earned freshman honors in a close vote as the freshman from Tulsa averaged 11.9 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Ladies of Centenary. A member of The Summit League All-Newcomer team, Farrell scored in double figures 20 times, including a season high of 25 against McNeese State. She had three double doubles on the year and a season best 14 rebounds against Sam Houston.

Helm, the Newcomer of the Year, is from Baton Rouge who played last year at San Jose and transferred to UNO and was granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA. Helm averaged 12 points per game, 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. The sophomore had 20 double figure games and was the 13th leading scorer in the Sun Belt Conference.

Chancellor, in his first year at LSU, finally got the trip to the NCAA Final Four that may have been the only thing lacking on his illustrious resume as his Lady Tigers won the SEC regular season title with a perfect 14-0 record. The Lady Tigers won 31 games and advanced to the Final Four as the No. 2 seed in the New Orleans region.

Chaney and White earned first team honors as the compliments to Fowles on the LSU team. Channey was the outside scoring threat while White ran the team as the primary ball handler.

Chaney averaged 14.8 points per game, 2.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists while making almost 40 percent of her three-pointers in earning first team All-SEC honors. The 1,000 point scorer was fifth in the SEC in scoring average, seventh in field goal percentage and third in three-point percentage with six games over 20 points. White averaged 7.4 points and 4.4 assists, earning second team All-SEC while being named one of the finalists for the Lieberman Point Guard of the Year Award. White was sixth in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio, tops in the SEC.

The play of Loyola’s Trenese Smith made the first team selection of the NAIA star from Loyola of New Orleans a no-brainer. Smith earned second team All-American honors as well as Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors after averaging 19.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists. Smith, whose sister Trenell was a third-team choice, led Loyola to its first NAIA Elite eight and was sixth nationally in scoring.

Rounding out the first team, Sneed averaged a double double for the Techsters with 15.5 points per game and 10.3 rebounds a contest. Sneed, a first-team All-WAC selection, registered 19 double doubles while leading Tech in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage (55%). Sneed was in the top five in the WAC in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and offensive and defensive rebounds (11th in the nation in total rebounds).

The second team consists of Ashley Langford of Tulane, Tena Matthews of Northwestern State, Kat Plummer of Nicholls State, Shanavia Dowdell of Louisiana Tech and Allison Hightower of LSU. The third team members are: Le’Della English of UNO, Trenell Smith of Loyola (NO), Diedra Jackson of Southern, Shannon Loyd of Louisiana-Monroe, Annie Farrell of Centenary and Jarryn Cleaves of Xavier.