Leedham Leads Great Britain to Bronze Medal at FIBA U20 European Championship
Franklin Pierce All-American finishes third in tournament scoring with 22.1 points per game
RINDGE, N.H. (July 23, 2007) - Franklin Pierce University All-American Johannah Leedham (Ellesmere Port, England/Cheshire Academy) led Great Britain to a bronze medal finish at the FIBA U-20 Women's European Championships in Druskininkai, Lithuania this weekend.
Leedham totaled a game-high matching 26 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field, including a blazing 6-8 from three-point range, to go with seven rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots as Great Britain posted a 79-73 victory over Portugal in the bronze medal game on Sunday.
Great Britain fell to eventual gold medalists Montenegro in Saturday's semifinal round, 69-61. Leedham finished with 15 points as she was held to 6-18 shooting from the field, including 1-2 from beyond the arc, to go with a game-high eight rebounds and two assists. Montenegro defeated host Lithuania, 83-64, in Sunday's championship contest.
Great Britain posted a 5-2 overall record at the tournament after finishing tied with Lithuania atop Group A in pool play, but lost the head-to-head tiebreaker. Leedham led GBR in most statistical categories, averaging 22.1 points (3rd overall among Championship leaders), 8.6 rebounds (6th), 3.0 assists (6th) and 2.9 steals (4th) per contest. She is shot 48.7-percent (56-of-115) from the field (5th), including 14-for-30 (46.7%) from three-point range (2nd). Leedham scored 20-plus points in all but two contests, posting a pair of double-doubles.
Leedham, a Daktronics third team All-American and also the first Kodak/WBCA All-District selection in program history, also collected Daktronics All-Northeast Region first team, Northeast-10 Conference Freshman of the Year, first team All-Conference and NE-10 All-Rookie team honors this past winter at Franklin Pierce. She took the Northeast-10 by storm in her first collegiate season, earning NE-10 Freshman of the Week honors 11 times and Player of the Week honors on six occasions, including a string of three-straight weeks leading into the holiday break. Leedham appeared in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the January 15 issue of Sports Illustrated.
Leedham led the Northeast-10 in scoring, averaging 23.1 points (3rd in Division II), to go with a Conference-best 4.0 steals (3rd nationally), 7.9 rebounds (5th NE-10), 3.3 assists (13th) and 1.0 blocks (6th) per game. She ranks sixth in the NE-10 in three-point field goal percentage (.390) and free-throw percentage (.813) and eighth in field goal percentage (.490). In 20 NE-10 games played, Leedham averaged 23.6 points (1st), 7.9 rebounds (5th), 3.5 assists (12th), 3.9 steals (1st) and 1.1 blocks (5th).
Leedham scored 20-plus points in all but nine games played last winter, reaching 30 points seven times, and recording ten double-doubles. She led the Ravens in scoring in 19 of their 28 games and rebounding 18 times. Leedham has already made an impact on Franklin Pierce's record book, setting no fewer than 19 records (including freshman marks) in her first collegiate season.
Franklin Pierce (17-10, 13-9 NE-10), ranked tenth in the final NCAA Division II Tournament Northeast Regional rankings, earned its fourth-straight postseason berth and hosted an NE-10 Tournament first round contest for the second-straight year.