Dec. 30, 2008

• PL Release (12-29-08)

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- Navy junior Chris Harris was voted as the Anaconda® Patriot League Player of the Week, the league office announced on Monday afternoon. It marks the first career Player of the Week honor for Harris, who garnered a Rookie of the Week accolade as a freshman during the 2006-07 season.

Harris had a career night in Navy's 78-68 loss to 18th-ranked Villanova last Monday night. The 6-2 guard tallied career highs in points (30) and three-pointers made (8), nearly leading the Mids to the upset victory. He scored Navy's first 12 points and made his first six three-pointers of the contest to keep Navy in the contest. He tallied 18 of Navy's 28 first-half points, then kept it going in the second half, making his seventh trey with 14:02 to play and his eighth and last three-pointer with 5:28 to play which cut the Wildcats' lead to five at 63-58. Harris finished the game 9-of-15 from the field and 8-of-10 from three-point range. He also went 4-of-4 from the free throw line and added one assist and one steal in 37 minutes of action. His eight three-pointers tied for the third most in school history, and tied for the most ever against Villanova.

For the season, Harris ranks third in the Patriot League in scoring at 15.8 ppg and leads the league by averaging 3.33 three-pointers per game. He has made 40 three-pointers in just 12 games, needing just 16 more three-pointers to move into the Navy single-season top 10 list. In addition, Harris now has 155 three-pointers to rank third on the Navy career list behind just Greg Sprink (237) and Michael Heary (201). Harris also averages 2.5 rebounds per game and 2.1 assists per game.

With his 30 points, he joins teammate Kaleo Kina as Navy players to have scored 30 points in a game this year. The duo became just the second pair to each score 30 points in a game in a season, joining just the duo of Don Lange and John Clune to each score 30 points in separate games in a season. Lange and Clune accomplished the feat in the 1951-52, 1952-53 and 1953-53 seasons.

Navy players have now won four of the last five Patriot League Player of the Week accolades after Kina won the honor on Dec. 1, Dec. 8 and Dec. 15.

Navy will be in action on Tuesday night in Alumni Hall, when it hosts Longwood, beginning at 7:00 pm. For ticket information, call 1-800-US4-NAVY.

# GO NAVY #