Tuesday it was announced that Fort Lewis College senior center Alex Herrera was, to the surprise of probably only an Antarctic penguin, named the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's Defensive Player of the Year. The IHS graduate also was named First Team All-RMAC for the 2014-15 season.
On Tuesday night, Herrera's season came to an unexpected early end with a 72-63 FLC loss to CSU-Pueblo in the RMAC tournament's quarterfinals.
Two games after scoring a career-high 34 points (to go with 16 rebounds) in a loss at Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, Herrera again led the Skyhawks with 17 points, two blocked shots and six boards at CSU-Pueblo, where his IHS days had also ended in 2010.
His two rejections gave him 94 for the season, and a career total/FLC-record of 301. His point total pushed him over the 1,750 mark-trailing only the 1,861 of former guard DeAndre Lansdowne (2007-11) in program history. His board work upped his career total to 937, the school's second-best, behind only Chuck Lamb's 1,054 collected from 1960-64.
Fort Lewis led 29-26 at halftime, but that advantage was erased by the 'Wolves (21-8 overall) winning the second half, 46 to 34.
Ending the campaign 20-9 overall, FLC was 20-of-51 (39.3 percent) from the floor and 17-of-25 (68 percemt) at the free-throw line. Jared Smith scored 13 points and Lucas Archuleta provided 11 off the bench.
CSU-Pueblo will next play first-seed Metro State University of Denver (25-4) in tonight's semifinals.
ADDITIONALLY: Skyhawk redshirt-freshman guard Rasmus Bach was named the RMAC's Freshman of the Year and Honorable Mention All-Conference, and junior guard Cade Kloster was tabbed Second Team.
