FINAL ACCOLADE: Princeton University women’s basketball star Blake Dietrick dribbles up the court in a game this
winter. Last week, Dietrick was named as the winner of the C. Otto von Kienbusch Award, the top honor for female senior athletes at Princeton. Men’s lacrosse star Mike MacDonald won the William Winston Roper Trophy, the top award for senior sportsmen. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Blake Dietrick, who led the Princeton University women’s basketball team to unprecedented success and national prominence this winter, and Mike MacDonald, who rewrote much of the Tiger men’s lacrosse record book in his career, were named the top senior sportswoman and sportsman at the Gary Walters ’67 Princeton Varsity Club Awards Banquet last Thursday evening.

For the first time in Princeton Athletics history, there were finalists named for the top two departmental awards, the C. Otto von Kienbusch Award and William Winston Roper Trophy.

The Kienbusch Award is the highest senior female student-athlete award at Princeton. C. Otto von Kienbusch was a staunch opponent of the addition of women to Princeton University in the late ’60s. Once women were admitted to the school, several early women athletes made a trip to his home in upstate New York to try to win him over. They were so successful that he became a major supporter of women’s athletics at Princeton and endowed this award.

The Roper Trophy was originally given by Mrs. William Winston Roper and the Class of 1902 in honor of Princeton’s famed football coach. It goes annually to “a Princeton senior male of high scholastic rank and outstanding qualities of sportsmanship and general proficiency in athletics.” It has been awarded annually since 1936.

Dietrick, a 5’10 native of Wellesley, Mass. who majored in English,  wrapped up a stellar senior season by leading the Princeton University women’s basketball team to an unblemished 30-0 regular season this winter and a fifth Ivy League title in six years, as well as the highest national ranking in Ivy League women’s basketball history (13).

Dietrick averaged career-highs in points (15.1), assists (4.9), and rebounds (4.5) per game this winter en route to Associated Press and WBCA Honorable Mention All-America honors. A seven-time Ivy Player of the Week, she was the conference’s unanimous choice for Player of the Year. Setting a single-season program record for assists (157), her 483 points in 2014-15 are tied for the third highest total in school history.

A two-time first-team All-Ivy selection, Dietrick wrapped up a decorated career ranked third on the Princeton charts in three-pointers made (210) and three-point shooting percentage (.395). Sitting fourth in assists (346) and 11th in scoring (1,233), she poured in a team-high 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting in her final collegiate contest, a NCAA second-round loss to eventual Final Four participant Maryland.

She later represented the Tigers in the annual State Farm College three-point Shooting Championships at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind., and signed a training camp contract with the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) Washington Mystics.

The other finalists for the von Kienbusch award were Lindsay Graff of the women’s tennis team, Lauren Lazo of the women’s soccer team, and Erin McMunn of the women’s lacrosse team.

MacDonald, for his part, graduates as one of the greatest scorers in the long history of Princeton men’s lacrosse, with several accomplishments that no other player in program history has ever matched.

A 6’1, 190-pound native of Georgetown, Ontario, MacDonald set the school record for points in a season this past season, when he had 78 points on 48 goals and 30 assists. He graduates third all-time in goal scoring in program history with 132, as well as fourth all-time in points with 208 and ninth all-time in assists with 76.

In addition, he is the only player in program history with a season of at least 40 goals and at least 30 assists and the only player in program history with at least one game of seven goals and another of six assists. He is one of two players at Princeton in the top 10 all-time in both goals and assists. He scored at least three goals in a game 10 times as a senior.

His career numbers would have been even more off the charts had he not been slowed by injuries that required surgery to both hips after his junior year.

MacDonald was the 2015 Ivy League Co-Player of the Year and a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection, giving him two first-team All-Ivy selections in his career.

The other finalists for the Roper Trophy were Quinn Epperly of the football team, Cody Kessel of the men’s volleyball team, Sammy Kang of the men’s squash team, and Cameron Porter of the men’s soccer team.