LAS VEGAS -- Aces guard Tiffany Hayes earned the WNBA Sixth Person of the Year award Friday, the league announced.

Hayes, the former UConn star, received 38 of 67 votes from a national media panel. New York's Leonie Fiebich finished second with 21 votes. Shatori Walker-Kimbrough of Washington and Marina Mabrey of Connecticut were the next two in the voting.

It's the fifth time in the past six seasons that a Las Vegas player has won the award.

In her 12th WNBA season and first with the Aces, Hayes played in 33 of Las Vegas' 40 regular-season games, coming off the bench a career-high 28 times and starting five games. To be eligible for the award, a player must come off the bench in more games then they start.

Hayes averaged 9.5 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists this season. She also made 40% of her 3-point attempts. She joined the Aces a few weeks into the season six months after she had announced her retirement from the WNBA.

Hayes won two national championships at UConn from 2008-12, earning first team All-Big East honors in her junior season. She is one of 16 players in program history to log at least 1,800 points in her career and ranks third all-time in games played with 154 appearances. The 5-foot-10 guard was drafted No. 14 overall by the Atlanta Dream in 2012 and went on to play 10 seasons with the franchise, earning her lone All-Star selection in 2017 and receiving All-WNBA first team honors in 2018.

Hayes started all 40 games in her lone season with the Sun in 2023, averaging 12.1 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists shooting 47.6% from the field. She originally announced her retirement on the "Counted Me Out" podcast on Dec. 13, but she was never officially labeled as voluntarily retired by the WNBA.