Aussie Amy Lewis received a call she won’t forget in a hurry last week.
Lewis (pictured right), who has just completed her senior year (fourth) at Troy University in the US, has been invited by WNBA Champions the Phoenix Mercury to attend their preseason camp which starts on Sunday, April 20.
The Mercury contacted Lewis’ college coach Mike Murphy an hour before the 2008 WNBA draft finished last week, seeking to invite her to the camp.
From Hamilton in Victoria, Lewis, who is also being courted by a number of ADF WNBL clubs, had an outstanding final year for the Trojans which culminated in her being named to the First Team All-Sun Belt Conference.
She was an emergency for the Australian U21 (Sapphires) world championship team in 2007, was also a member of the Gems (U19) squad and played for Australia at the U17 Oceania championships in 2004.
World Champion Australian Defence Force Opals Penny Taylor and Belinda Snell play for the Mercury, who defeated the Detroit Shock in an epic finals series last year 3-2, to win their first WNBA title.
Lewis, 21, will leave the Trojans as one of the elite scorers in school history, scoring 1,544 points in her career – fifth of all-time.
“She was absolutely stoked,” her father, Roger, said. “She had been told during the season that a couple of teams had been looking at her, including Phoenix and Atlanta, but we thought it could have been a string along.”
“Troy then put a highlights package together of Amy and sent it out to a few of the clubs."
In her final college year, Lewis led her team in scoring, averaging 15.2 points per game, in field goals made, with 167, in field goal attempts, with 382, finished second on the team in three-point field goal percentage (35%), finished second in free throw percentage (73.9%), finished second in total rebounds with 147, second for most rebounds per game, averaging 5.1 and finished third in assists, dishing out 54.
Click here to see Amy’s outstanding career at Troy.
She is also the school’s all-time leader in free throw percentage for a career with over 200 made.
Four other Aussies are on the Troy roster – Larelle Roper (Terrigal, NSW), Alyce Shearing (Melba, ACT), Kylie Morrissy (Geelong, VIC) and Danielle Realph (Avoca Beach, NSW).
Lewis, Ropers, Shearing, Morrissy and Realph made NCAA history last year when they all started the same game.
Good Luck Amy.
