ST. LOUIS – Missouri State women’s basketball racked up a total of seven Missouri Valley Conference postseason accolades, highlighted by specialty awards for head coach Beth Cunningham (Coach of the Year), Lacy Stokes (Defensive Player of the Year) and Kaemyn Bekemeier (Sixth Player of the Year), the league announced today.
Additionally, Stokes was named to the All-MVC first team and All-Defensive Team, while Sarah Linthacum earned a spot on the All-Newcomer Team and Lainie Douglas secured an All-Freshman Team honor.
Cunningham becomes the fourth different head coach in program history to take home MVC Coach of the Year (Cheryl Burnett, Kellie Harper, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton). She helped lead the Lady Bears to a share of the MVC regular-season title, the first of her head coaching career, after being picked to finish fifth in this year’s MVC Preseason Poll. In her first three seasons at the helm, Cunningham has constructed three consecutive 20-win seasons, and MoState has already matched its win total from a season ago.
To this point in her Missouri State tenure, Cunningham owns a 67-29 (.698) overall record and a 45-15 (.750) conference record. The Lady Bears are 39-5 at home under Cunningham and she helped lead her squad to a 14-0 record in Springfield, marking just the eighth undefeated home season in program history and the first since 2019-20.
Stokes is the eighth different Lady Bear in program history to take home MVC Defensive Player of the Year, and she is the first to win the award since Brice Calip in 2022. The senior also earned first-team all-conference honors for the first time in her career, following a second-team nod a season ago, and lands on the all-defensive team for the second consecutive season.
In 20 conference games, Stokes averaged 14.6 points, 4.3 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.6 steals per game. She also averaged 34.4 minutes per game while shooting 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from beyond the arc and 76 percent at the free throw line. In MVC action, she posted 15 double-figure scoring performances, which included six games with at least 20 points.
Bekemeier becomes the second Lady Bear to win the MVC Sixth Player of the Year award since its inception in 2015. She makes it back-to-back wins for Missouri State in the category after Kennedy Taylor earned the award last season. It marks the first MVC honor of her career.
Coming off the bench in all 20 league games for Missouri State, Bekemeier averaged 11.6 points and a team-leading 6.4 rebounds per game. The Republic, Mo., native shot 42 percent from the field, 33 percent from three and 80 percent from the line. She posted 14 double-figure scoring performances and was MoState’s third leading scorer against Valley foes.
Linthacum earned a spot on the MVC All-Newcomer Team following an impressive debut season at MoState after transferring from Missouri. The Jefferson City, Mo., native averaged 10.9 points and 6.1 rebounds per game and ranked seventh in the league with a .525 field goal percentage against Valley competition. She was named MVC Newcomer of the Week twice throughout the season. Linthacum tallied 10 games with double-figure points and two double-doubles in 19 games, while leading MoState in rebounding in six games.
Finally, Douglas was named to the MVC All-Freshman Team after a stellar first season in a Lady Bear uniform. In just 14.5 minutes per game, the Overland Park, Kan., native averaged 8.8 points and 4.2 rebounds per game during the conference slate. Douglas was named MVC Freshman of the Week five times throughout the season. She led the Lady Bears with 22 blocked shots in MVC play, which ranked seventh in the league. The freshman recorded nine double-digit scoring performances, which included a 20-point outing in her first career start against Indiana State.
The No. 2 seed Lady Bears (24-7, 16-4 MVC) will open their MVC Tournament stay on Friday, March 14 at 6:00 p.m. against the winner of No. 7 UIC or No. 10 Evansville.
