W OMEN’S COLLEGIATE VOLLEYBALL 2016 AVCA NCAA
Division I All-Americans First Team
Inky Ajanaku (Stanford) Amy Boswell (BYU) Lauren Carlini (Wisconsin) Simone Lee (Penn State) Ebony Nwanebu (Texas) Kelsie Payne (Kansas) Kathryn Plummer (Stanford) Kadie Rolfzen (Nebraska) Courtney Schwan (Washington) Samantha Seliger-Swenson (Minnesota) Haleigh Washington (Penn State) Micaya White Texas) Sarah Wilhite (Minnesota) Justine Wong-Orantes (Nebraska)
Second Team
Adora Anae (Utah) Abby Cole (Michigan) Chloe Collins (Texas)
Alyssa Garvelink (Michigan State) Alex Holston (Florida) Kelly Hunter (Nebraska) Crissy Jones (Washington) Taylor Leath (North Carolina) Haleigh Nelson (Wisconsin) Taylor Sandbothe (Ohio State) Katie Staiger (Baylor) Bailey Tanner (Washington) Hannah Tapp (Minnesota) Nikki Taylor (Hawai’i)
Third Team
Rhamat Alhassan (Florida) Katie Brand (Kansas State) Melanie Crow (Missouri) Lydia Dimke (Creighton) Leah Edmond (Kentucky) Molly Haggerty (Wisconsin) Ainise Havili (Kansas) Merete Lutz (Stanford) Kalei Mau (Arizona) McKenna Miller (BYU) Amber Rolfzen (Nebraska) Penina Snuka (Arizona) Lindsey Vander Weide (Oregon) Tionna Williams (Wisconsin)
2016 AVCA Players of the Year NCAA Division I Sarah Wilhite
(University of Minnesota)
NCAA Division II Annie Wolfe
(University of Nebraska at Kearney)
NCAA Division III Lindsey Peterson
(University of Northwestern-St. Paul) NAIA Wendy Romero (Park University)
Two-Year Colleges Massiel Matos
(Miami Dade College) NCCAA
Alison Renz (Maranatha Baptist University)
Ebony Nwanebu was a big reason Texas made its second consecutive trip to the national championship match. She was solid against Stanford in the finals after a big night against No. 1-seeded Nebraska in the semifinals. (Photo: University of Texas)
allowed myself to be more comfortable playing whatever level I was at, I started to become more natural. I think what was really limiting me was being so robotic in trying to get as high as possible, really pushing myself off the ground. But when I just played vol- leyball, I jumped where I needed to jump to be successful.” Her 1.54 blocks per set for the season
boosted Stanford to a nation-leading 3.86 blocks per set, and she also led Stanford in hitting efficiency at .407. Beyond the num- bers, she contributed by sharing her wisdom. In the regional final at Wisconsin, Stanford trailed Wisconsin 2-0 in sets before coming back for the win, and Cardinal players say they were inspired by a locker room speech from Ajanaku in which she reminded the freshmen just how ready they were to win a big-time match. All season, she funneled that type of positive energy to her teammates. “If you watched her on the bench, she’d
almost run into the linesperson half the time when she was cheering,” Corlett says. “She turned into a true leader this year. There were 12 freshmen and sophomores on this team. That’s a lot of youth. But she obviously made it a very positive experience for them.”
Consistently good One way to look at Texas’ season is that it ended, like last year, in disappointment. The glass-is-half-full version would go more like this: the Longhorns, who won their last title in 2012, have now made it to the volleyball national semifinals eight times in nine years, more than any other school. The highlight this year was clearly their
three-set semifinal win over the top-seeded Nebraska Cornhuskers, who beat the Long-
42 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag 2016 AVCA Coaches of the Year
NCAA Division I Head Coach John Dunning, Stanford University
NCAA Division I Assistant Coach Dani Busboom Kelly, University of Nebraska
NCAA Division II Head Coach Chris Green, University of Alaska-Anchorage NCAA Division II Assistant Coach
Sheldon Carvalho, University of Alaska-Anchorage
Division III Head Coach Beth Wilmeth, University of Northwestern-St. Paul
Division III Assistant Coach Kelly Bonja, Tufts University
NAIA Head Coach Matt Buttermore, Hastings College NAIA Assistant Coach
Steve Field, Bellevue University
Two-Year Colleges Head Coach Bob Vilsoet, Harper College
Two-Year Colleges Assistant Coach Jared Johnson, Central Community College
NCCAA Head Coach Bill Schepel, Trinity Christian College NCCAA Assistant Coach
Stephen Zink, Campbellsville University
horns in the 2015 championship match. This time around, the Longhorns (27-5 in 2016) took it to Nebraska in a big way, hitting .321 behind a team-leading 15 kills for a .378 hitting efficiency from junior outside hitter Ebony Nwanebu, who missed nearly all of 2015 recovering from injuries. “We felt from watching [Nebraska’s] sea- son that teams that could compete for long periods of time and not back down could get them on their heels,” Texas Assistant Coach
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