OTTAWA (CIS) - Guelph field hockey player Brienne Stairs and York soccer player Francesco Bruno are the BlackBerry Canadian Interuniversity Sport female and male athletes of the week for the period ending Sept. 20, 2009.

Stairs, a third-year bio-medical student from Kitchener, Ont., tallied eight goals and 10 points to help the 2008 OUA finalist Gryphons kick off the regular season with three wins in three outings. Stairs, a second-team all-Canadian a year ago, opened the campaign with a stellar five-goal performance in a 7-0 win over Queen's, added a pair of markers in a 3-1 victory over York, before tallying her eighth goal of the weekend in a 3-0 shutout of McGill.

Dalhousie soccer player Kate MacDonald, Laval cross country runner Manon Létourneau and Alberta soccer player Amanda Black were also nominated for the women's award.

Bruno, a fourth-year business and society student from Toronto, scored four of the Lions five goals last weekend including a hat trick against Windsor on Sunday. The reigning CIS men's soccer player of the year netted the game-winner Saturday as defending national champion York (2-2) defeated Western Ontario 2-0, and then accounted for all his team's offence the next day in a 4-3 loss to the Lancers.

UNB soccer player Matt Lally, Laval cross country runner Dominic Michaud and Trinity Western soccer player Nathan Pogue were the other male nominees.

Female nominees:
AUS: Kate MacDonald, soccer, Dalhousie
QSSF: Manon Létourneau, cross country, Laval
OUA: Brienne Stairs, field hockey, Guelph (recipient)
Canada West: Amanda Black, soccer, Alberta

Male nominees:
AUS: Matt Lally, soccer, UNB
QSSF: Dominic Michaud, cross country, Laval
OUA: Francesco Bruno, soccer, York (recipient)
Canada West: Nathan Pogue, soccer, Trinity Western


-CIS-