Fierst earns Newcomer of the Year and First Team All-Heart, Johnson and Lake also earn All-Heart honors
KANSAS CITY, Mo - To put a cap on the 2021-22 season for the Clarke University men's basketball team, three players earned various honors from the Heart of America Athletic Conference as the conference announced postseason awards Tuesday afternoon.
Junior forward Jacob Fierst and senior guards Keith Johnson and Jordan Lake earned All-Conference honors with Fierst earning a spot on the First Team, Johnson landing on the Second Team, and Lake receiving Honorable Mention. Lake earns a spot on an All-Conference team for the third-straight season and Johnson receives an All-Conference nod for the fourth time in his four seasons at Clarke with Fierst landing on the All-Conference team in his first season at Clarke.
Being new to CU and to the Heart, Fierst's efforts also landed the West Allis, Wis. product on the individual award winners for the Heart as the Newcomer of the Year in the conference. Fierst, a transfer from Morningside College led the Pride in scoring and rebounding averaging 19.0 points and 9.1 rebounds in his 28 games play, all in the starting lineup for Clarke while averaging 31.4 minutes per game.
Fierst also had 12 double-doubles on the season with points and rebounds, shot at a 47.6 percent clip on the season and moved the ball well for his size to average over 1.5 assists per game. With his scoring average nearing the 20-point mark, Fierst scored 20 or more points in 11 games this season including a five-game streak to end the season that included Fierst scoring 30 and 39 points in the Pride's final two home games on his way to earning his second of two Heart Player of the Week honors, where the 39-point game against Iowa Wesleyan being good for sixth-best individual scoring game in program history.
A home grown product from Dubuque, Johnson earns his first Second Team honor in his four seasons being a selection on the All-Heart teams as he finished the 2021-22 season averaged 17.2 points per game in all 29 games of the season and averaged 34 minutes per game while also grabbing 5.3 rebounds per game and averaging over an assist per game, over a steal per game, and one blocked shot per game in his senior season.
No stranger to high scoring games, Johnson scored over 20 points in eight different games this year, including a 34-point game in a road victory inside of the Heart of America on Dec. 1 against Graceland that helped Johnson earn his lone Heart Player of the Week honor of the season. Finishing up a stellar career, Johnson ended his four years with 1,669 total points scored, the fifth-highest total in program history and he made 299 three point field goals just six shy of the career record in the program and one shy of being just the second member of the 300 three pointers club.
Lake, another fixture for the program over his four years since joining from Peosta, Iowa, was a true point guard in any sense of the word leading to his Honorable Mention selection this season. Finishing the year averaging 13.2 points per game in a team-high 35.7 minutes per game he also averaged 6.2 assists per game on his way to 161 total assists on the season, both career-high marks.
With those assisting stats, Lake become the program's all-time leader in total assists as he finished with 444 total assists, shattering the previous record of 389. Lake was also called upon as a dependable free throw shooter as he finished with 407 total free throws made, just two shy of the all-time mark in program history.
The Pride will head into the offseason to prepare for the 2022-23 season, hoping to build off of the strong individual seasons from Fierst and other returning members of the CU men's basketball team.