Preseason All WAC

[roy]

DENVER – The WAC Preseason all-WAC volleyball team was announced today as voted on by the nine coaches. Hawai‘i All-American Jamie Houston was named WAC Preseason Player of the Year. This is the third-straight season that a Rainbow Wahine player earned the preseason honor with former Hawai‘i All-American Kanoe Kamana`o earning the honor in 2005 and 2006.

Hawai‘i led the way placing four on the 12-player team. Along with Houston, seniors Kari Gregory and Juliana Sanders and junior Tara Hittle earned preseason honors. Houston, Gregory and Sanders were all first-team all-WAC selections in 2006. Hittle missed most of the 2006 season due to injury.

New Mexico State placed two players on the preseason team, senior Kim Oguh and junior Amber Simpson. Both were first team all-WAC selections last season. San Jose State also had two players make the team with junior Niki Clement and senior Jennifer Senftleben being named to the squad.

Four teams placed one player on the preseason all-WAC team all of whom made the second team last season. Nevada senior Teal Ericson, Louisiana Tech senior Shannon Phillips, Idaho junior Haley Larsen and Utah State senior Amanda Nielson round out the 2006 preseason team.


2007 Preseason All-WAC Team
Niki Clement, Jr., San Jose State
Teal Ericson, Sr., Nevada
Kari Gregory, Sr., Hawai‘i
Tara Hittle, Jr., Hawai‘i
Jamie Houston, Jr., Hawai‘i
Haley Larsen, Jr., Idaho
Amanda Nielson, Sr., Utah State
Kim Oguh, Sr., New Mexico State
Shannon Phillips, Sr., Louisiana Tech
Juliana Sanders, Sr., Hawai‘i
Jennifer Senftleben, Sr., San Jose State
Amber Simpson, Jr., New Mexico State

Preseason Player of the Year: Jamie Houston, Hawai‘i

[roy]

I am surprised Hittle made the team, considering she was injuried all of last year. A bit surprised that Torres from NMSU and Sipher from Nevada didn't make the list.

[shai87]

suprised that jayme lee is not there and well its no suprise that houston was named preseason WAC player of the year.

[mbrooks]

Wow. Only 2 for us. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm a-thinkin' there are some names missing from that list.

[808]

mbrooks said:

Wow. Only 2 for us. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm a-thinkin' there are some names missing from that list.

I was going to ask who you think is missing but decided to check out your team's roster first -- whoa! that's a lot of freshmen and RS freshmen on that team! 6 freshmen and 2 RS freshmen, if I counted correctly. Anyway, who do you feel is missing?

[mbrooks]

Krystal Torres and Bri Akrie

[vbfan5]

Any WAC team expecting to play freshmen?

[roy]

mbrooks said:

Krystal Torres and Bri Akrie

Akrie is a good DS, but your not going to see any on a preseason all conference list. You would usually only see one libero on the list and I would have expected Torres to be there. She is probably the top libero in the conference and should have made it on. But Akrie wasn't going to make the list.

[mbrooks]

I was more shocked that Krystal wasn't on it than Bri.

[roy]

mbrooks said:

I was more shocked that Krystal wasn't on it than Bri.

Agreed. Torres should have made the list. But it's not a knock on NMSU or Torres, just the position. The libero position is still not getting the respect it deserves. Heck, only one libero made it onto the AVCA All American List last year (among the 3 teams, not HM).

[5100]

They pile up the liberos on the honorable mention list. Some of the top liberos like Zartman and Lee only made the three teams in their final years.