T&T sharp­shoot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace was vot­ed the 2018 QBE New South Wales Swifts ‘Most Val­ued Play­er’ at the Sun­corp Net­ball League club’s an­nu­al Gala Din­ner at Doltone House Hyde Park in Syd­ney’s CBD on Tues­day night.

Named af­ter Prin­ci­pal Part­ners, QBE, the ‘Most Val­ued Play­er’ is the Club’s high­est ac­co­lade and is award­ed to the play­er who has re­ceived the most ‘MVP’ votes from a spe­cial­ist Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball pan­el dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son.

The T&T in­ter­na­tion­al, who joined the Club in 2017 af­ter be­ing tal­ent spot­ted at the 2015 Net­ball World Cup, re­cent­ly re-signed with the Swifts on a two-year deal af­ter win­ning the MVP Award in the Swifts’ sea­son-end­ing vic­to­ry over the Ade­laide Thun­der­birds.

The 24-year-old Wal­lace scored 415 goals from 464 at­tempts this past sea­son, the sev­enth best in the league de­spite shar­ing du­ties with So­phie Garbin and Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al He­len Hous­by for an im­pres­sive shoot­ing record of 932 goals from 1044 at­tempts over the past two sea­sons of Su­per Net­ball, plac­ing her fifth on the all-time com­pe­ti­tion lad­der.

“This is fan­tas­tic for Sam and I know it will mean the world to her,” coach Briony Ak­le said.

“What I love about Sam on the court is how much style and flair she brings to the game. Her shoot­ing abil­i­ty is sec­ond to none, and her abil­i­ty to score from any­where in the cir­cle means she is al­ways a hand­ful for the best de­fend­ers in the game.

“There are lots of things you can teach in this game, but the raw tal­ent isn’t one of them and she has that in spades. We are very for­tu­nate to have Sam signed up for the next two sea­sons and I can’t wait to see how her game de­vel­ops from here.”

Wal­lace, who is cur­rent­ly lead­ing the T&T ‘Ca­lyp­so Net­ballers’ at­tack at the 2018 Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (AF­NA) World Cup qual­i­fiers in Bar­ba­dos, with 73 goals from 81 at­tempts in lop­sided wins over USA (86-29) and Cana­da (80-26), al­so had 20 of­fen­sive re­bounds in the Sun­corp League.

Pri­or to link­ing up with the na­tion­al women’s team Wal­lace along with Hous­by and Sarah Klau all re-signed with the Swifts for the 2019 sea­son.

The trio be­comes the fourth, fifth and sixth play­ers to recom­mit af­ter the Swifts last week se­cured the ser­vices of Mad­dy Turn­er, Mad­dy Proud and So­phie Garbin.

Hous­by will re­main a Swift un­til 2021 at least af­ter sign­ing a three-year deal, Klau re-signed on a one-year deal af­ter con­tin­u­ing her im­pres­sive form in the Swifts’ de­fen­sive end which earned her a place in the 2018/19 Aus­tralian Di­a­monds Squad and Wal­lace, who was tal­ent-spot­ted at the 2015 Net­ball World Cup, re-signed on a two year deal.

Dur­ing her lone sea­son in the Eng­land Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball League three years ago, Wal­lace was vot­ed as the league's 'Play­er of the Year' along with pick­ing up the top award at her for­mer club, benecos Mav­er­icks

2018 New South Wales Swifts Ho­n­our Roll

QBE Most Val­ued Play­er: Sam Wal­lace

Mem­bers’ Play­er of the Year: Sarah Klau

Coach­es Play­er of the Year: Mad­dy Turn­er

Play­ers’ Play­er of the Year: Abbey Mc Cul­loch

Club Per­son of the Year: Ani­ta Kee­lan