Courtney Thompson: PAC-10 POW

[Pirate VB Fan]

No surprise here...

Washington's Courtney Thompson Named Pac-10 Volleyball Player of the Week

Junior setter earns first Player of the Week Honor

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Washington setter Courtney Thompson has been named Pac-10 Volleyball Player of the Week for Sept. 12 - Sept. 18, Commissioner Tom Hansen announced today.

Thompson, a junior from Kent, Wash., led the No. 2 Huskies to a pair of road wins over No. 6 Hawai'i. As a setter, she guided the Huskies to a team attack percentage of .301, while posting 17.17 assists per game, well above her league-leading 14.62 assists per game. In addition to her 103 assists, she added 19 digs (3.17 dpg) and five blocks (0.83 bpg).

Washington's back-to-back sweep over Hawaii was the first by a Rainbow Wahine opponent since the 1993 season. Both matches were played before crowds of 8,000-plus fans.

The Huskies will next travel to Pullman, Wash., Sept. 23, to open the conference season versus in-state rival, Washington State.

This is Thompson's first weekly honor and Washington's 16th Player of the Week honor all-time.

[bucky415]

I think there may be a surprise here, actually: the fact that she hasn't won it sometime already in her career. I am sure there have been quite a few weeks where the Huskies hit a very high percentage and won out in her career, so she probably was in the running a lot of times before now, but good that she finally got the recognition. I saw her in I think the first weekend of her career, and she led an offense that Wisconsin in 2003 had no hope of stopping. She didn't look like an inexperienced player at this level at all then and has just gotten better.

[Wolfgang]

We all knew a Washington player was going to get it. We just didn't know which one. Great for Courtney.

[fanofpac10]

I am impressed with Thompson's all around play. She seems to have an instinctive court sense. She flat out gets to the ball, no matter where it is on the court, and then finds a way to get it perfectly to her hitters. UW's passing makes things easy on her, though. Lee is phenominal and I think the best libero I've seen.