Chelsea Poppens was recognized on Tuesday for her 2011-12 season by The Associated Press as an All-American honorable mention.

In a conference with players such as Baylor’s Brittney Griner and Kansas’ Carolyn Davis, Poppens was the only player to average double-digit points (14.2) and rebounds (10.6) and said the honor was a bit of a surprise.

“I was kid of surprised just because I hadn’t been playing very well near the end of the season, and we didn’t finish quite as well as we would have liked, but yeah, I was excited,” Poppens said.

ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly said he began to notice something special during the non-conference season, and it continued once conference play began.

Leading the conference in double-doubles showed her consistency throughout the season, and Fennelly said she deserved it completely.

“There’s no question that she was the best player on our team and gave us a chance to win,” Fennelly said.

The AP honor for the Aplington, Iowa, native is not Poppens’ only award from the past season.

One of just three unanimous decisions to the All-Big 12 First Team and her 317 rebounds — most in a season since Iowa State’s Angie Welle in 2002 — also go to show how recognized she was by her teammates and opponents this season.

Senior Lauren Mansfield and sophomore Hallie Christofferson did not start out as well as they had thought offensively and Fennelly was quick to credit Poppens for keeping them in games throughout the year.

“Especially when you look on the back end to now, with the inconsistency of everyone else on our team, she was the consistent one game-in and game-out especially when it came to rebounding … so she was the number one reason our team did what it did,” Fennelly said.

The team went on to advance to the NCAA tournament for the 13th time in school history, but lost in the first round to UW-Green Bay.

As for next year, Poppens said this will give her a way to push herself to improve even more

“It will definitely motivate me over the summer just to work harder and to help my teammates work harder because obviously I wouldn’t have gotten this award without them or the coaches and all that,” Poppens said.

Poppens also led the Big 12 in offensive rebounds with 132, six more than Griner, while shooting 49.8 percent from the field.

From the moment Poppens began to emerge as a key factor for the Cyclones this season, Fennelly spoke tirelessly of her work ethic.

“If nothing else, that’s a great example of work hard every day, results follow,” he said.

One would guess that being the recipient of this type of award make her the first one to find out. However, Poppens said she had no idea until someone at the team facility told her congratulations.

“I’m always like the last person to know everything,” she said jokingly.