A proverbial war machine rolled over the competition, while a young sniper came in with guns blazing.

Despite a myriad of impressive individual efforts over the course of the spring semester, men’s basketball’s Frank Kaminsky and Annie Pankowski of the women’s hockey team stood out as the top performers and are the male and female athletes of the year.

Best Male Athlete: Frank Kaminsky

There’s no doubt that Frank Kaminsky was the top athlete at Wisconsin this semester. In fact, Kaminsky wasn’t just the best at Wisconsin, but was the unanimous top basketball player across the country.

In his senior season at Wisconsin, Kaminsky became one of the best players to ever take the floor as a Badger, leading his team in points per game (18.8), rebounds (8.2), assists (2.64), field goal percentage 54.7), 3-point percentage (41.6), blocks (57) and was second on the team in steals (33) while playing a team-high 33.6 minutes per game.

Kaminsky was the only player in Division I to average at least 17 points, eight rebounds, two assists and 1.5 blocks per game.

As Wisconsin advanced to its second straight Final Four, and to its first national championship game in 74 years, Kaminsky swept the college basketball Player of the Year awards. He won the John R. Wood Award, the Oscar Robertson Trophy and the Naismith Trophy among numerous other Player of the Year honors from publications such as Sports Illustrated and The Associated Press.

While Wisconsin rolled through the Big Ten this season en route to a regular season and tournament championship, Kaminsky was named the Big Ten’s Player of the Year and was selected to the all-Big Ten first-team.

Kaminsky led the Badgers in scoring 23 times this season and hit the 20-point mark 17 times. The seven-footer also hit double figures in rebounding 14 times to add 14 double-doubles to his already impressive stat line.

The Lisle, Illinois, product played his best during the NCAA tournament when he scored at least 20 points in four of Wisconsin’s six tournament games, including the final three games against Arizona (29), Kentucky (20) and Duke (21).

It was a season to remember for Kaminsky and perhaps the best in Wisconsin history for all the above reasons and that’s why he’s our male athlete of the semester.

Best Female Athlete: Annie Pankowski

Pankowski had to wait a year to play her freshman campaign, but that wait was well worth it.

In what was supposed to be her freshman season in 2013-14, Pankowski tried out for the United States Olympic Team and ended up being the last cut as she failed to make the Olympic roster. With tryouts extending into the fall and the early part of Wisconsin’s season a year ago, Pankowski sat out UW’s season.

But she came back strong from disappointment and left no doubt about her ability as she was voted the National Rookie of the Year on the heels of one of the best freshman seasons in UW history.

Pankowski put up 43 points to lead all Wisconsin scorers and had 21 goals, the sixth highest total for a UW first-year skater. Along the way, Pankowski also netted two hat tricks, becoming only the fourth Badgers freshman to notch multiple hat tricks in a season.

Late in the season Pankowski came on especially strong for the Badgers with 12 goals in her last 15 games and 18 total points over that span. Her late season output helped make her the first freshman to lead Wisconsin in scoring since Sara Bauer led UW in points in 2003-04.

Her impressive scoring ability in just her first season make Pankowski the Female Athlete of the Year and a player to watch in the years to come.