When your team wins 20 basketball games in a season, plenty of accolades are going to go along with it.

A combined poll of 10 area coaches and 10 media members awarded two teams that posted 20-win seasons with 5-of-5 first team selections on the Alan Miller Jewelers All-Press basketball team.

All five are either from Genoa (20-2) or Lake (22-2), and all are seniors.

Consider Lake 5-foot-9 guard Kaysie Brittenham unanimously received Player of the Year honors and her coach, Denny Meyer, overwhelmingly was chosen Coach of the Year, and you’ve got 7-of-7 choices from either Lake or Genoa.

Lake’s first team choices are Brittenham and 5-11 forward Carly Huston, and they are joined by three Genoa players — 5-9 wing/guard Julie Swartzmiller, 5-9 wing Alyssa Meis, and 5-10 wing/post Jessica Feller.

Brittenham, averaging 19.7 points, was also selected first team All-Ohio in Division III by the Associated Press. Huston averaged 9.8 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.9 steals. She shot 48 percent from the field and 74 percent from the free throw line.

Feller averaged 11.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, and made 79-of-98 free throws (81 percent). A four-year varsity letter winner, she has seen Genoa win 75 games and three sectional titles and is also a first team D-III District 7 choice and first team All-SLL.

Meis, a three-year varsity player, averaged 11 points, 7.7 rebounds, and is second team District 7 and second team All-SLL. Swartzmiller, a four-year varsity letter winner, averaged 10.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and four steals. She is honourable mention District 7, first team All-SLL, and she, Feller, and Meis can play in the District 7 all-star game.

“This could have been a very difficult year, having a new coach in their senior year, and when you look at their stats they are very unselfish and were a big part of our 20-2 season,” first-year Genoa coach Mike DeStazio e-mailed The Press. “With a new system and having only one year together, we had a very successful year.”

DeStazio also received votes for Coach of the Year, as did other first-year coaches Terry Murnen (Cardinal Stritch) and Brad Hemminger (Oak Harbor).

Hemminger’s 5-10 senior post, Kayla Diefenthaler, came close to breaking the hold by the two Suburban Lakes League schools and earning first team, but finished sixth and is second team. She is joined by teammate Allison Dunn, a 5-9 junior wing, Lake’s Hannah Cox, Waite 5-11 sophomore forward Kre’Ana Henry and Woodmore 6-0 senior post Audrey Thorbahn.

Two carry-overs from Waite’s Division I state runner-up team last year were named third team — 5-5 senior guard Brooke Hunt and 5-10 junior forward Sinnfinney Watts.

Lake has completed three straight 20-win seasons under Coach Meyer and the table could be set for future success, despite a lack of depth this season at the junior varsity level.

Cox and Hunter Johnson, both juniors, and sophomore Alyssa Shaffer will form the nucleus of next year’s team. Lake’s jayvee team went 1-19 this season.

“We have a good eighth grade class, also,” Meyer said. “Some of them might be able to come in and help us right away. They didn’t lose a game in seventh or eighth grade. We had some of our freshmen come up later in the year to use them more on varsity, and that kind of hurt our jayvee record. We were taking some of our jayvee players and saving their quarters for varsity.”

Meyer added that of his three seasons at Lake, including back-to-back 20-0 regular seasons in 2008-09 and 2009-10, this one was his most satisfying.

“To me, this was the best season,” he said. “We’ve had three very good seasons. All the adversity we went through this year, with girls not wanting to come out and having no depth — knowing we had five varsity players and people we were hoping could fill in — we were just so proud of the way everyone came together and played their roles.

“Alyssa had to play varsity and she knew what her role was. To me, that’s what was great. We didn’t have the best talent of the teams I’ve had here before, but everybody knew their role and they played them perfectly.”

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