SIOUX FALLS – The Summit League announced its regular season awards on Thursday in a press conference in Sioux Falls, where they revealed the selection of South Dakota State’s Nate Wolters as The Summit League Player of the Year.

“He’s certainly deserving of the honor, I don’t think anybody can question why he would be the player of the year when you look at his stats, but more importantly how important he is to our team,” head coach Scott Nagy said. “He’s definitely the best player in our league.”

Already a two-time All-Summit League First Team selection, Wolters adds a third first team honor and becomes the 13th Jackrabbit to earn league player of the year honors in SDSU history, the first in The Summit League, and the first overall since Jason Sempsrott earned North Central Conference MVP in 1997.

In addition to Wolters, the league also honored junior Jordan Dykstra on the second team and senior Tony Fiegen on the honorable mention squad.

“I think Jordan belongs on the second team, although I think you can definitely make an argument for him being on the first team, particularly with us being the number one seed and him averaging eight and a half rebounds per game,” Nagy said. “The other thing is that he’s playing on a team with someone averaging nearly 23 points per game, which definitely eats into other people’s averages. We’re proud of Jordan and what he’s meant to our team, so I think he’s deserving of the honor.”

Dykstra earns his second straight second team honor after receiving all-newcomer team honors as a freshman in 2011, while Fiegen earns a league honor for the first time in his career.

“We would’ve liked to have seen Tony on at least the second team, because he means a lot to us,” Nagy said. “We’ve asked him to sacrifice a lot in order to be one of our better defenders, but he’s certainly deserving of honorable mention.”

All nine of the league’s head coaches, along with  sport information directors and selects media voted on the awards.

The Jackrabbits open The Summit League Championships on Saturday as the No. 1 seed against No. 8 seed IUPUI at 6:05 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Arena.

First Team
                Travis Bader, Oakland
                Marshall Bjorklund, North Dakota State
                Ceola Clark III, Western Illinois
                Frank Gaines, Fort Wayne
                Terell Parks, Western Illinois
                Nate Wolters, South Dakota State

Second Team
                Lawrence Alexander, North Dakota State
                Taylor Braun, North Dakota State
                Jordan Dykstra, South Dakota State
                Duke Mondy, Oakland
                Justin Simmons, Omaha