After leading the John Brown University volleyball team to its best season in more than a decade, sophomore Jessica Meyer was named to the first team while senior Alyssa Arnold was awarded an honorable mention in the 2017 American Volleyball Coaches' Association-NAIA All-Region teams, the AVCA announced on Monday, Nov. 27.
Joining the tandem was Courtney Marshall, who was named the South-Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year.
Winning the league's hitting efficiency title by over .025, sophomore Meyer adds to her trophy case after also collecting her first-career Sooner Athletic Hitter of the Year honors alongside a first-team nomination. She finished the season hitting .349 (325-102-639) overall and .378 in conference play. Meyer posted a season-best 16 kills against Wayland Baptist (Texas) on Nov. 7 and hit double-digit kills in 10 of JBU's 16 conference games. In conference, Meyer also led the team with 46 blocks, averaging .87 rejections per set.
"Having been previously selected as the SAC Hitter of the Year and a first-team All-SAC member, I felt pretty confident that Jessica would be able to earn a spot on the All-Region team," JBU head coach Ken Carver said. "That being said, I'm really happy for her and proud she is being honored for such a consistent season she had for our team. In only her second year on our team, Jessica put up career-best numbers to date in every category but one this past season. Beyond her statistical contributions, Jessica is one of our 'high energy' players who not only plays with a lot of enthusiasm, but celebrates and inspires her teammates with a lot of positivity as well. Jessica showed a lot of growth this season as a player and her performance definitely illustrates this.
"While I'm really pleased with her development so far as a player and the success she has been able to contribute to our team these past two years, I still think there's even more potential which we haven't tapped as of yet. So I'm excited for Jessica as well as our team, to see how Jessica will continue to improve during our off-season training program and come back an even better and potentially even more dominant player next season."
Arnold, meanwhile, collects her second-career All-Region honorable mention after finishing her collegiate career with a career-best season. She passed out 619 assists in conference play, averaging 11.7 helpers per set, the highest in the conference, en route to a SAC first-team selection. Named the NAIA's National Setter of the Week once this season, Arnold passed 50 assists or more five times this season, 13 times surpassing the 40-assist mark, totalling 1,161 helpers.
"Similar to when she earned this honor as a sophomore, Alyssa earned this prestigious recognition by stepping up and helping our team out when we lost our other setter for the season due to injury," Carver said. "In making the transition to a 5-1 system, Alyssa had some memorable highlights this season including going over the 1,100-assist mark this season, being named the conference setter of the week five times and NAIA National Setter of the Week once. With her directing our team's offense, Alyssa helped this year's team finish with its highest attack efficiency (.219) in over a decade, tie the best kills per set performance (13.2) and have the third-highest assists per set performance. Alyssa did an exceptional job this past season in working with our attackers and was always soliciting their feedback in how to give them better opportunities to score via her set location and tempo.
"We asked and trained Alyssa and Elizabeth Williams to speed up our offense and gave them more freedom and opportunities to call and run our offense. Being able to terminate more balls and at a higher efficiency rate were two of the bigger factors directly leading to the success we had on the court this season. The ability for us to pass at a high level and for our attackers to terminate their shots all played into the equation as well, but Alyssa did an excellent job night in and out for us by putting our attacking players in the best position to be successful. I couldn't be more thrilled for Alyssa for her to finish out her JBU volleyball career on such a high note and for her to be recognized as one of the best setters and players in the region."
Marshall finished her three-year stint as Carver's graduate assistant this year, helping John Brown compile a 69-34 (.670) record over the last three seasons.
"Our final award winner, though not a player, was also an indispensable piece of our team's success this year and over the course of the past two years," Carver said. "Both as a player during her senior year and my first year as JBU's head coach and her time over the past three seasons as my assistant, Courtney has been a major influence on our team's success. As a player, she and the rest of the senior class, provided me with a great group of leaders who were open and very supportive of what I brought into the program as a new head coach. During my time with her, several of the things that have impressed me most about her and really appreciate about her is her willingness to learn, to lead and to serve. As a senior player, she had to adjust to a new coach, new systems, new values and in her specific case, playing a new role on the team as she came back from injury.
"A year later, she returned to the program and jumped into a whole new world for her by joining my coaching staff. Making the transition from being a player to a coach is a lot harder than it looks and what most players can grasp when they're still playing. It takes a special person to be able to make that transition successfully and be able to find his/her coaching voice and be able to be an effective teacher. Courtney has been right there in 'the trenches' alongside of me and has helped in all aspects of our program from recruiting, to our strength and conditioning, to our on-court training as well as being a great counselor and mentor to our players. She has continued to mature as a coach and her hard work and effort with our players this year helped move our team forward in our progression. I'm definitely indebted to her for all she contributes to our program both on and off the court and am thrilled to have her honored for all of her efforts in being named the region's Assistant Coach of the Year."
Sports on 12/06/2017