ST. LOUIS – Twelve Missouri Valley Conference volleyball student-athletes have been named to the 2017 MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team by a vote of the league's volleyball sports information directors. An additional eight student-athletes have earned honorable mention, the league office announced Tuesday (Nov. 21).
Senior setter
Rachel Griffin was named to the League's First-Team for the first time in her career. The Avon, Indiana product holds a 3.92 GPA in exercise science and became just the 11th player in program history to surpass the 2,000-career assist mark.
Griffin leads the Sycamores and ranks fourth in The Valley in assists with 10.04 per set. She has had recorded 40 or more assists in a match 15 times this season, including 58 assists two times.
Seven Hills, Ohio native
Sarah Peterson was named to the Honorable Mention Team. The senior has a 3.85 GPA in speech & language pathology and ranked third on the squad with 241 kills to go along with 170 digs and 36 blocks. Peterson hit .185 in 111 sets this season for the Sycamores.
This year's first-team includes 10 players that have received previous MVC volleyball scholar-athlete recognition, including seven repeat first-team honorees, including Drake's Kyla Inderski, Illinois State's Jaelyn Keene and Ali Line, Missouri State's Emily Butters, Brianne Dixon and Lily Johnson and Southern Illinois' Abby Borrow. Illinois State's Keene and Missouri State's Johnson are three-time first team honorees. Two members of the first team boast a perfect 4.00 GPA, in Illinois State's Ali Line and Missouri State's Brianne Dixon.
Four Valley first team scholar-athletes – Illinois State's Keene, Missouri State's Johnson and Dixon and Valparaiso's Allison Ketcham – were also members of their respective CoSIDA Academic All-District Teams.
Forty-four student-athletes were nominated for the Valley's scholar-athlete team. The criterion for the honor parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves with at least a 3.20 cumulative GPA (on a 4.00 scale). Also, students must have participated in at least 75-percent of the regular-season matches. Student-athletes must have reached sophomore status in both athletic and academic standing at their institution (true freshmen and redshirt freshmen were not eligible).
For the latest information on the Sycamore Volleyball team, make sure to check out
GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including
Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram.
