Benedetti named NEC’s Scholar Athlete for women’s basketball

Canton High graduate Sarah Benedetti 

Canton’s Sarah Benedetti has been named one of the Northeast Conference’s six winter Scholar Athlete award winners. Each Scholar Athlete award winner must have maintained a grade point average of at least 3.20 and participated with distinction as a member of the varsity team.

Benedetti, a senior forward, was the named the NEC’s Scholar Athlete award winner in women’s basketball after a magical season in Brooklyn. She was named the NEC Tournament Most Valuable Player after she sparked the fifth-seeded Terriers to three straight road wins and the program’s first league championship. 

Bendetti averaged 21.7 points in the NEC Tournament, including a career-high 29 in St. Francis’ 77-62 win over Robert Morris in the championship game. That victory sent St. Francis to the NCAA Division I tournament for the first time in its history and the Terriers played eventual national champion Connecticut in the first round at Gampel Pavilion.

On the year, Benedetti ranked 11th in the NEC in scoring with 14.2 ppg and finished third in the conference with 2.3 three-pointers per game.  The small forward closed out her career with 1,379 points and a school record 280 three-pointers. 

Benedetti was inducted into the prestigious SFC Duns Scotus Honor Society in 2014 and was a Dean’s List student each semester at St. Francis.  She maintains a 3.96 grade point average, majoring in Political Science.

St. Francis eliminated by Connecticut