FOREST, Va. – Ball-hawking defensively throughout the Springhill Suites Guilford Holiday Classic, Dawson Edwards (Durham, N.C.) authored his best week as a Quaker and as a result, he was recognized by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) as the ODAC Defensive Player of the Week for the timeframe of December 22^nd through January 4^th, as announced by the conference offices on Monday afternoon.

Nabbing 13 steals over the Quakers' trio of contests, in addition 24 rebounds, 11 assists, and 33 points, the graduate student made a huge impact in GC's 2-1 week. The Bull City native opened Guilford's action on Monday with the most well-rounded performance of his collegiate career in the team's Holiday Classic-opening win over the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He netted 10 points on 3-of-8 shooting but, was huge in other aspects, dishing a career-high five assists against just a single turnover and securing a then-career-best eight caroms, four of them on the defensive end. Most-notable for this award though was his seven steals, a career-high total that trails only his own teammate, Kody Clayton's (Cary, N.C.) mark of eight thefts against Greensboro for the most in a game in the conference this season. As a team, the Quakers restricted the Bears to just .371 shooting, their third-lowest mark of the season and GC's lowest figure permitted on the year, while causing the USCGA to commit a season-high 26 turnovers in the win, 116-84. Edwards followed that up with another standout steals total of five in another win in the Holiday Classic Championship contest against Concordia College-Moorhead. Although he netted just five points along with three rebounds, all of them offensive, and three assists, Guilford put in their best defensive effort as a team in the game, holding the Cobbers to 60 points, a total that is both the lowest allowed by the Quakers, and scored by CC-M on the season. The guests shot just .417 from the field on the night and committed a season-high 28 turnovers, nearly double their total from any other contest this year, as Guilford handed the Cobbers their first non-conference defeat of the campaign, 85-60. Finishing the week with a conference clash with Washington & Lee, the Quakers would fall in a thriller, 90-88, but Edwards did everything he could in the contest, finishing one tally short of his career-high for scoring with 18 points along with three assists and one steal. It was the graduate student's work on the glass that stands out in this one, though, as he claimed a career-best 13 rebounds including seven of them on the defensive end to register his first-collegiate double-double.

With his recent binge, registering 21 steals over Guilford's last nine games, Edwards has rocketed up national leaderboard in the category, now standing third in the league behind just Clayton and Eastern Mennonite University's Aaron Brooks for the conference lead in steals as his cumulative total of 25 ranks 90^th in the nation and his average of 2.27 per game sits 83^rd. For an undersized guard, he has also proven that height is just a number, attacking the offensive glass and seizing 2.64 offensive rebounds per game, the sixth-most in the ODAC and 155^th-most in Division-III this season. Overall, he has contributed 10.8 points, 5.3 total rebounds, and 2.9 assists with a 3.56 assist-to-turnover ratio this season.

While there was about a month-long hiatus between games, and a pair of weekly awards distributed by the conference in between, this does mark the second-straight week that GC has played this season where a player garnered ODAC Defensive Player of the Week honors after Clayton got recognized ahead of the break. Those two plus Gabe Proctor (Apex, N.C.) have collected conference weekly honors as GC now stands one-short of cumulative their Player of the Week total of four last winter. Guilford's total of three separate award winners is notable, however, as it stands as the program's most different honorees in a single season since at least 2009-10.

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