Two John Brown University volleyball players earned a career-first as junior outside hitter Audrey Dearien was named to the All-Region first team while sophomore Shayna Daniels landed honorable mention accolades, the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced last week.
Dearien, a native of Frisco, Texas, was one of 14 players named to the first team. An All-Conference first team honoree, Dearien accumulated honorable mention accolades in her freshman campaign. This year, she led John Brown to a 22-11 overall record and a spot in the Sooner Athletic Conference quarterfinals. Dearien led JBU in terminations for the second time in three seasons (416) and averaged 3.50 kills per set. Dearien also set career highs in service aces (62), digs (370), kills per set and digs per set (3.10). Named the SAC Player of the Week back on Oct. 16, Dearien terminated a season-high 28 balls in JBU's win over Texas Wesleyan on Oct. 11 and scooped up a career-high 25 digs in the Golden Eagles' loss to Texas Wesleyan in the SAC tournament quarterfinals on Nov. 14. Against Wayland Baptist (Texas) on Oct. 25, she eclipsed the 1,000-kill plateau en route to a 15-termination game.
Hailing from Magnolia, Texas, Daniels was one of eight players to grab honorable mention status. After landing honorable mention honors last season, Daniels claimed All-Conference first team accolades after dishing out a personal-best 663 assists in 2014, 44 more than last season, and a career-high 262 digs. She landed SAC Player of the Week honors on Sept. 22 and launched a career-best 71 service aces, including a single-game program record high of 10 in John Brown's upset win over Wayland Baptist on Sept. 26. Daniels passed around more than 20 helpers on 18 occasions this season and ended the 2014 campaign with a career-high 35 assists in JBU's loss to Texas Wesleyan in the SAC tournament quarterfinals.
"I'm very proud for Audrey and Shayna to be recognized as All-Region players," said head coach Ken Carver. "Both players consistently performed at a high levels for our team throughout the season and were large contributors to the team's overall success on the court. Both Audrey and Shayna had a number of career-best statistics this season and ranked high not only in our conference but nationally as well.
"While both of these young women had great individual performances this season, I really appreciated how hard both of them worked to encourage and inspire their teammates to greater heights and better performances as well. They are great young ladies both on and off the court and I couldn't be more happy for these two to earn this prestigious recognition for their efforts. I'm even more excited by the fact that we will have them back for next season and will be working hard this off-season to make even greater strides individually and as a program."
The duo mark the 19th and 20th entries by John Brown players on the AVCA regional honor list in program history. Dearien now has an opportunity to join Amber Squires and Juliana Todescan as the only individuals in team history to earn AVCA regional honors three times in a career.
Sports on 12/10/2014