Lieber Receives Heartland Honor (12/26/05)

BILLINGS, MT – Montana State-Billings forward Michelle Lieber has been named the Heartland Conference player of the week for the week of December 19-25.  Lieber is a 6-foot junior from Gillette, Wyo.  Lieber’s award is the third for the Yellowjackets this season.  Tanya Petersen and Alira Carpenter have also been tabbed as conference players of the week.

Lieber led MSU Billings to an important 65-55 South Central Region win over Abilene Christian last Tuesday.  Abilene Christian was picked to win the Lone Star Conference South.  Lieber scored 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 from the free throw line.  She also grabbed nine rebounds. 

In her 33 minutes on Tuesday, Lieber also held the Wildcats’ Jamie Boles-Lord to just four points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field. Boles-Lord was the preseason MVP in the LSC South.  During the Yellowjackets’ current four-game winning streak Lieber is shooting 81 percent from the field.  For the season she leads the Heartland in shooting at 66.2 percent.  She also ranks seventh for scoring (12.4), second for rebounding (9.3), and sixth for blocked shots (0.78).

The Lady Yellowjackets are idle this week.  Their next game will be January 4 when they host Western New Mexico in their Heartland Conference home opener.