Valparaiso High School's Grace Withrow was named to the 2013-14 IBCA/Subway All-State Girls Basketball honorable mention squad on Wednesday.
She was joined by Hannah Albrecht (Crown Point), Heather Burton (Washington Township), Jordan Cole (Munster), Kaitlin Doud (Portage), Tiajaney Hawkins (East Chicago Central), Naomi House (Hammond Noll), Joshlynn King (Bowman Academy), Nicole Konieczny and Kyleigh Kubik (La Porte), Riley Popplewell (South Central), and Gina Rubino and Tara Zlotkowski (Lake Central) as Northwest Indiana members of that team. Victoria Gains of Merrillville, Dana Evans of Gary West Side and Michal Miller of Michigan City represented the region on the Underclassmen First Team.
Joining several others on the Seniors' first team across the state was Caroline Puntillo of Chesterton. Puntillo was joined by seven local athletes named to the Seniors' honorable mention squad, including Trina Coleman (Morgan Township), A.J. Downs (Merrillville), Jaclyn Heath (La Porte) Bethany Jansma and Lauren Stokes (Kankakee Valley), Grayce Roach (Hobart) and Jill Rosenbaum (South Central).
The IBCA all-state teams are selected in a process where all IBCA-member head coaches have the opportunity to nominate top players from schools in the traditional regional structure of the non-class tournament format. Representatives from each of those 16 regional areas, plus six at-large representatives (two each from IHSAA Districts 1, 2 and 3), then meet to review those nominations, vote and finalize the selections.
Subway Restaurants of Indiana once again is making a financial contribution to the IBCA Scholarship Fund as the presenting partner of the IBCA all-state teams. As part of the partnership, Subway also will provide plaques to first-team honorees and certificates to players receiving honorable mention recognition. Those items will be available to each recipient's coach at the annual IBCA Clinic in April, allowing her coach to present the award to each player at her school.
The IBCA thanks Subway Restaurants for being a partner in this annual project.