Oct. 24, 2005

WACO, Texas - Baylor junior middle blocker Desiree Guilliard-Young (Berkeley, Calif.) was named Big 12 Conference Player of the Week, sharing the honors with Texas Leticia Armstrong, the league office announced Monday.

Guilliard-Young led the Bears to a pair of wins, on the road at Texas A&M Wednesday, Baylor's first win in College Station since 1992, and at home against Kansas Saturday. She hit .373 and averaged 5.25 points, 4.00 kills and 2.38 blocks per game in the two matches.

On Wednesday against Texas A&M, Guilliard-Young tied for the team lead with 14 kills and posted eight blocks. She had six kills in the fourth game alone, including four in a row during the Bears' seven-point run to end the match.

Saturday against Kansas, Guilliard-Young hit .414 with a career-high and match-high 18 kills and 11 blocks, marking her second double-double of the season. She got the Bears off to a fast start in game one with eight kills and three blocks.

Guilliard-Young also made a rapid ascent up Baylor's career blocks list this week, moving up from 10th to seventh. With 346 career blocks, she is only seven away from sixth and already ranks second on Baylor's all-time in hitting percentage. Guilliard-Young is averaging 1.74 blocks per game, which would rank second in the Big 12 if she had played enough matches to qualify, but she does rank second with 1.83 blocks per game in conference matches only.

The honor is the first for Guilliard-Young and the first for the Bears since Andrea Vakulya earned the award Nov. 10, 2003.

The Bears return to action tonight against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 7 p.m. at Moody Fieldhouse in Corpus Christi, Texas.