Catherine Traer
Women’s Basketball
986 votes
In her final season on the Ravens basketball team, Traer won U Sports gold for the first time in her career. She also logged an average of 25 minutes in all 21 games she started this year on the court.
“She is a really good person who cares about the team. She’s not afraid to put the teams’ needs before her own. She works hard on and off the court,” teammate Heather Lindsay said.
Traer is currently one of two Carleton basketball players (Munis Tutu being the other) competing for Team Canada at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Marcus Anderson
Men’s Basketball
974 votes
In his third season on the men’s basketball team, Anderson won bronze at the U Sports nationals and helped his team win gold at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) level.
Anderson was named the U Sports defensive player of the year, as well as the OUA defensive player of the year.
“That’s really special to hear, I’m happy to hear that the readers like to hear about me and how my team’s been doing really great, so for me to be selected out of my peers is really great,” Anderson said of being chosen as one of the top five Carleton athletes.
Moustafa Kamel
Swimming
120 Votes
In his second year at Carleton after moving to Ottawa from Egypt, Kamel won Carleton’s first divisional swimming title in 12 years. Kamel competed in the 200-m freestyle event, where his time of 1:55:18 topped his previous best time by almost four seconds. Going into the race, Kamel was expected to place eighth but surprised himself when he took home first.
“He had a huge personal best and swam the race really well,” head coach Brian Hill said after Kamel’s race.
His strong times throughout the year helped Carleton bring home twelfth place at the OUA championships.
Zoë Williams
Nordic Skiing
77 votes
In her third season on the Nordic ski team, Williams was named an OUA second-team all-star for the second time, as well as winning the women’s individual overall title.
Williams won three first place titles at this year’s Nordic Skiing championships and was also a major part in helping her team win the women’s classic relay event as well as helping her team to an overall first place finish at the OUA championships.
“I was happy with it. I’d say I had pretty big goals for myself as I usually do heading into a race season, but I was pretty stoked overall with how it went,” she said.
Williams listed the team’s OUA championship win (their third in a row), as well as their first ever team win at the Cross Country Ski Nationals as good examples of the strength of this year’s team.
Gabriel Bitar
Men’s Soccer
15 Votes
As a rookie on the Ravens team, Bitar led the OUA in goal scoring with 16 and was second in total points with 18. Bitar was a clutch player for the Carleton squad, scoring six game-winning goals.
“When we recruited them initially, we knew that [both Bitar and Stefan Karajovanovic] would be good players for us, we didn’t think that they’d have the impact that they did as quickly as they had,” said head coach Kwesi Loney in a previous interview with the Charlatan.
Bitar also brought home the Lou Bilek Award for U Sports Rookie of the Year, as well as being named a U Sports first-team all-Canadian, the first Raven to do so since Joey Kewin in 2013. Bitar was also named Carleton’s male athlete of the year.
