LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- In exclusive all‐conference voting by the head coaches of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), Georgia Mullins of Colorado College and Avery Tuggle of Trinity University split the vote to share SCAC Player‐of‐the‐Year honors while Trinity head coach Julie Jenkins was named SCAC Coach‐of‐the‐Year. Complete Release
In the same balloting, Texas Lutheran University student-athletes picked up two major awards as Lexi Morris was voted Backrow Player-of-the-Year and the Bulldog’s Shavonne Respondek earned Freshman-of-the-Year honors. Colorado College’s Jenny Jenks was selected the league’s Setter-of-the-Year honor.
A senior middle hitter from Olathe, Kansas, Mullins, who also earned Player-of-the-Year honors a year ago, currently leads the SCAC in hitting percentage (.358), points (501), points per set (5.0), kills (445 – currently fifth in the nation) and block assists (106), and is in the top five in kills per set (4.01 – second), blocks (121 – second), solo blocks (15 – second), blocks per set (1.09 – fourth) and service aces (38 – fifth). Her points per set, blocks per set, kills per set and hitting percentage rank in the top 25 in all of Division III. She was a five-time SCAC Offensive Player-of-the-Week (Weeks 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9) and earned Defensive Player-of-the-Week honors in Week 3. Her 11 career conference POTW honors are second only to Janie Hodgkinson’s 12, who accumulated her accolades while at DePauw University from 1998 to 2001.
Mullins is the first player to earn back-to-back Player-of-the-Year recognition since Southwestern University’s Audra Gentry in 2008 and 2009. Her selection marks the seventh time in the last eight years a Colorado College student-athlete has taken home at least a share of the league’s highest honor.
Tuggle, a senior outside hitter from Cedar Creek, Texas and the league’s Player-of-the-Year following the 2019 season, helped lead the Tigers to an undefeated regular season in conference play, posting 307 kills (third in the SCAC) with 350 points (fourth in the SCAC). She is also currently top 10 in points per set (3.3 – 10th), kills per set (2.92 – ninth) and hitting percentage (.280 – seventh). Tuggle was the league’s Offensive Player-of-the-Week three times over the 2021 regular season – Weeks 4, 7 and 8 – and added an AVCA National POTW honor to her resume when she led the Tigers to a 4-0 sweep at the SCAC Group B/C #1 where she paced the Tigers with 46 kills on an overwhelming .393 attack percentage. It was her second career AVCA National POTW award, making her just the second player in league history to win the award twice.
Tuggle selection as SCAC Player‐of‐the‐Year marks a record 16th time a Trinity student‐athlete has taken home the league’s highest honor. She and Mullins are now members of the exclusive multiple Player-of-the-Year club, becoming just the sixth and seventh players in league history to earn a second SCAC Volleyball POTY honor.
Both Mullins and Tuggle received four votes in the balloting for POTY with Southwestern’s Emma White received the remaining vote.
Shavonne Respondek, a first-year outside hitter from San Antonio, made an immediate impact for Texas Lutheran, quickly becoming one of the team’s leaders while confidently running the offense. She leads the team in both assists (458 – 11th in the SCAC and second among first-year players) and aces (30 – 10th in the SCAC and tops among first-year players) and is third in digs (240). Respondek, who earned Third Team All-SCAC recognition, is explosive and quick and brought tremendous energy to a Bulldog squad that posted its highest regular season finish since the 2017 season.
Respondek is the second TLU player in program history to receive Freshman-of-the-Year honors, following Hannah Mikelonis who shared the honor with Trinity’s Avery Tuggle in 2017. She received four votes from the coaches in this year’s FOTY balloting, followed by Christina Kuras of Southwestern and Ally Peters of University of St. Thomas, who received two votes each. Brianna Barch of Austin College received the remaining first place vote.
CC’s Jenny Jenks, a sophomore from Hermosa Beach, Calif., earned the league’s Setter-of-the-Year award and First Team all-conference recognition after leading the SCAC and the nation in assists (1,213) during the regular season. She also led the league in assists per set (11.03), which is currently good for third in the nation, and has helped Colorado College to a .252 hitting percentage this season (second in the SCAC and 10th in the nation). An all-tournament recipient at every event the Tigers participated in this season, Jenks is the second consecutive CC player to earn Setter-of-the-Year honors, following Isabelle Aragon-Menzel who earned the inaugural award last season.
Jenks was a top five coaches’ ballots in the Setter-of-the-Year voting followed by Marisa Amarino who received two first-place nods. Kelsie Walker of St. Thomas and Katelyn Whitehead of Southwestern received one vote each.
TLU’s Lexi Morris, a senior libero from Victoria, Texas, was selected the league’s Backrow Player-of-the-Year and leads the SCAC in both digs (681) and digs per set (6.14) heading into this weekend’s conference tournament. Her total digs also lead all of NCAA Division III and her digs per set total is currently sixth in the nation. Her career digs per set average of 5.51 is currently the third highest in SCAC history. Morris, who was also an all-SCAC First Team selection, helped lead a Bulldog defense that held opponents to a .121 hitting percentage, the second-lowest mark in the conference. She is the third different TLU player to earn Backrow POTY honors, following former Bulldogs Megan Lee, who won the honor in back-to-back years (2013 and 2014) and Jaci Chambers who received the award following the 2018 season.
Morris received five first place votes in the balloting, followed by four players who received one vote each: Ali Grona of Southwestern, Peyton Hummel of Colorado College, Nadia Kern of Trinity, and Mari Prazak of Austin College.
Coach Julie Jenkins led Trinity to the SCAC regular season title and the program’s first undefeated conference regular season since the 2007 season. The Tigers are currently ranked second in the nation by the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) and have defeated eight nationally ranked teams over the course of the 2021 season. Among the many highlights of this year’s campaign, Jenkins secured her 1,000-career coaching victory, becoming just the third coach in NCAA Division III history to do so when Trinity defeated Centenary 3-0 on October 1. Additionally, Trinity is riding a 35 match home winning streak – the second-longest NCAA III active home winning streak in the nation – which will be on the line this weekend as the Tigers play host to the 2021 SCAC Volleyball Tournament. Owner of a 1,014‐424 career record (.705), Jenkins is currently the NCAA Division III winningest active coach and ranks third all‐time in victories. Her 369 conference wins are the most in league history in any sport and her .907 career conference winning percentage is the highest of any current or former volleyball coach.
The award marks the 15th time Jenkins has been recognized by her peers as the conference’s Coach‐of‐the‐Year, and her 15 COTY awards are the most by a head coach in any sport in league history.
To view the entire 2021 All-SCAC Volleyball Team, click here.
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