UMD Bulldogs "ALLETE" Moments: Competition
Throughout this year, UMD Athletics is partnering with Minnesota Power, ALLETE to highlight the Bulldogs accomplishments in the 3 C's: Classroom, Competition, Community. 

Brooke Olson of the University of Minnesota Duluth women's basketball team was selected as a World Exposure Report (WER) First Team All-American, per a release from the publication. Olson was also one of four finalists for the WER Player of the Year award. 

This is the third time Olson has landed WER honors in her career. Last season, the graduate forward was named to the All-American Second Team. Back in 2020-2021, the Rice Lake, Wis. native paired her first WER First Team All-American nod with the overall WER Player of the Year accolade. 

Olson's currently averaging a team-high clip of 23 points per game that's also good for third in the country, all while leading the team in average assists with 7.4. When it comes to offensive output in the madness of March, the graduate forward's dominance isn't contained to just the top of her team's charts. Olson's 32 points per game across three NCAA Tournament contests so far leads the entire postseason field. 

Olson is one of two NSIC athletes to make an appearance across the WER honoree list, the other being Augustana's Aislinn Duffy on the All-American Honorable Mention list. She's one of seven players our out of the Central Region to earn a moniker, the others being:

-Brooke Littrell, Central Missouri (First Team)
-Tre'Zure Jobe, Emporia State (Third Team)
-Laci Stokes, Missouri Southern (Third Team)
-Sage Hawley, Harding (Third Team)
-Aislinn Duffy, Augustana (Honorable Mention)
-Jalei Oglesby, Arkansas Tech (Honorable Mention)

The full WER All-American Teams, along with honorable mentions, can be found below:

"All." It's a word Olson's seen a lot of so far this year. Just yesterday on March 15, she was named the CSC's DII All-America Player of the Year. That was an advancement of her CSC Academic All-District title. Before that, a D2CCA All-Central Region First Team member, a title inherent to the Central Region Player of the Year. Same situation with her All-NSIC First Team and NSIC Tournament All-Tournament recognition- that's going go happen when you're the NSIC North. Player of the Year and the conference tournament MVP. One more that's a little bit different than the rest- the all-time leader in points scored in NSIC regular season contests with 1615 total. In short… just about all the "alls." 

But that's not all when it comes to Olson's accolades across the year. 

Let's just start with a deeper dive into some of those aforementioned titles. This is the graduate forward's third-straight time winning the NSIC Tournament MVP award- she's the first women's basketball player to ever achieve that in the conference. But when it comes to repeating as NSIC Player of the Year, nobody across the women's or men's league has done it more- Olson's now won the award four-straight times. 

As you can imagine by this point, Olson's scored a lot to help her achieve these feats- like, a lot. Enough to be second in UMD history in career points scored with 2455. Enough, even, to be the second-highest active scorer in all of NCAA Division II women's basketball.

All of this has helped to spur upon overall team success that's at times been unparalleled. UMD three-peated as NSIC Regular Season Champions- that's only happened five times. But when the Bulldogs won their third-consecutive NSIC Tournament Title, they made history, becoming the first women's squad to do so. All of this was done on the path to UMD's first Elite Eight berth after hosting the Central Regional for the first time as a program. 

UMD's all-time run will continue in St. Joseph, Mo. on Monday, March 21 with a contest against Assumption in the St. Joseph Civic Arena at 2:30 p.m. CT.

About Minnesota Power, ALLETE:
Our bold vision centers on our commitment to climate, customers and communities. We're a clean-energy leader under our EnergyForward strategy, already delivering 50% renewable energy ahead of all other Minnesota utilities. Now we're doubling down on that with a vision to deliver 100% carbon-free energy to customers reliably and affordably by 2050. Learn more at: https://www.mnpower.com/CarbonFreeEnergyVision