DANBURY, Conn. - The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) recently announced its year-end awards and Navy's Zanai Barnett-Gay was near the top of the press release as the junior guard was selected as a member of the 2025-26 All-ECAC First Team. An Honorable Mention AP All-American, the talented guard was recognized by the ECAC for her outstanding efforts in leading Navy to the 2025-26 Patriot League Regular Season Championship and the program's second straight postseason berth.

The 2025-26 Patriot League Player and Defensive Player of the Year, Barnett-Gay is now a three-time All-ECAC honoree. She continued building on her record breaking career in 2025-26 as suited up and started all 31 games for the Mids as the team went 22-9 with a team-best 16-2 mark in Patriot League play. Barnett-Gay led Navy in nearly all of the team's statistical categories with averages of 16.9 points, 8.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.8 steals and 33.7 minutes per game. Additionally, she paced the Mids with an 80.8 percent free throw mark. Barnett-Gay regularly stuffed the stat sheets as she scored in double figures 28 times, recorded 11 double-doubles, assisted on five or more baskets on 16 different occasions and grabbed three or more steals in 16 contests.

Already the fastest player to 1,000 points in the program's Division 1 era, Barnett-Gay is now up to 1,659 career points (18.0 points per game average) with 683 rebounds (7.4 rpg), 311 assists (3.4 apg) and 248 steals (2.7 spg) over 92 career games. Among all active NCAA D1 players, she has the eighth-highest steals per game rate and has accumulated the 12th-most points. In Navy's personal record book, Barnett-Gay now holds the second-, third- and sixth-highest single-season point totals and is the only player to surpass the 500-point plateau more than twice in their career; consequently shes up to number three in the career total points list, less than 200 away from the program record of 1,857 points set by Courtney Davidson between 2001 and 2004. Barnett-Gay is also approaching the rarefied air of most steals in program history as she's within 13 of Becky Dowling's mark of 261 set over the 1995 to 1998 time period. As a 5-8 guard, she also on the precipice of breaking into the top-10 for most career rebounds as she trails No. 10 Bernie Boska (1978-81) by just 33 caroms.

The major ECAC award winners for the 2025-26 season include Maine's Adrianna Smith, who was the ECAC Player of the Year, Siena's Francesca Schiro, who was named the ECAC Rookie of the Year and Fairleigh Dickinson's Stephanie Gaitley, who was selected as the ECAC Coach of the Year. The 2025-26 All-ECAC First Team consisted of Smith and Barnett-Gay, as well as Maggie Doogan (Sr., Richmond), Kaety L'Amoreaux (Jr., Fairfield) and Peyton McDaniel (R-Sr., James Madison). The second team is made up for Ava Renniger (So., Fairleigh Dickinson), Zennia Thomas (Sr., Howard), Jade Tillman (Jr., UMBC), Rachel Ullstrom (Sr., Richmond) and Zahirah Walton (R-Jr., George Mason).

The ballot for All-ECAC consisted of players from the East Coast and schools that compete in the AAC, America East, Atlantic 10, Big East, Big Ten, CAA, Ivy League, MAAC, MEAC, NEC and Patriot League conferences.