Former Pirate shining

Courtney Ford, a two-time Orange Empire Conference MVP at Orange Coast College from 2005 to 2007, has earned back-to-back Player of the Week recognition in women’s basketball in the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Ford, a 5-foot-8 senior guard at Mercer University in Macon Ga., received her second straight weekly recognition Monday after stuffing the stat sheet in the Bears’ 75-62 win over Furman on Saturday.

Ford led all scorers with 26 points, pulled down a career-high 17 rebounds and added six assists and four steals to help the Bears overcome a nine-point deficit in the final seven minutes.

Ford shared Player of the Week laurels the previous week, after keying an 87-77 win over Charleston Southern on Nov. 21. She became the first Mercer player to post a triple-double, amassing 13 points, 15 assists, and 10 rebounds. Furthermore, she collected nine steals to just miss a quadruple-double.

Entering tonight’s home game against Lipscomb, Ford is averaging 17 points, 10.8 rebounds, 6-5 assists and 4.8 steals for the Bears (2-2).

Ford was a two-time first-team all-state honoree at OCC, where she is the school’s career leader in points (1,416) and scoring average (21.6 per game). As a sophomore, she averaged 23.3 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and 2.6 steals.

— From staff reports

Anteaters’ Hunt recognized

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men’s water polo coaches have voted UC Irvine’s Marc Hunt Coach of the Year.

Hunt, in his fifth season, led UC Irvine to a 17-12 record, including a fifth-place finish in the MPSF Tournament.

The Anteaters lost, 6-5, to eventual tournament runner-up and No. 3-ranked Cal in the quarterfinals, before defeating UC Santa Barbara, 12-9, and Pepperdine, 14-8.

This is the second time in three years Hunt has been voted the conference’s top coach.

UCI junior driver Brandon Johnson was named to the All-MPSF second team after scoring 49 goals this season, second most on the team.

Seniors Cole Bielskis (48 goals) and Tom Kruip (50) received honorable mention for the Anteaters.

— From staff reports