The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced this year’s all-region honors and nine Big West athletes and one coach made the list.
Included on the AVCA All-West Region Team were 2012 Big West Volleyball Player of the Year Emily Hartong (Hawai’i), Casey Hinger (Cal State Northridge), Kayla Neto (Cal State Fullerton), Chisom Okpala (Long Beach State), Mita Uiato (Hawai’i) and Kristin Winkler (UC Irvine). Earning honorable mention accolades were UC Santa Barbara’s Taylor Formico and Long Beach State’s Janisa Johnson and Tara Roenicke. Formico, 2012 Big West Freshman of the Year, also picked up AVCA West Region Freshman of the Year accolades and Big West Coach of the Year Dave Shoji earned AVCA West Region Coach of the Year honors.
During the regular season, Hartong paced the league with a 4.57 kill average and 5.22 points per set average, while ranking seventh in hitting percentage with a .283 clip. Her impressive kill average placed her among the Top 15 in the country as well. Over the course of the season the Los Alamitos, Calif., native collected four Big West Player of the Week awards and one Sports Imports/AVCA National Player of the Week selection.
Hinger, hailing from Fullerton, Calif., finished as the Big West’s top blocker this season averaging 1.34 stuffs per set and placed third on the Matadors’ squad with 277 kills. Hinger’s season total of 147 blocks is the eighth-best for a single season in CSUN history and ranks second in the Matadors’ rally-scoring era.
Neto led the Titans and ranked second in the Big West with a 4.33 kills per set average. In addition, Neto finished the year with 38 service aces to rank third in the league. The Sacramento, Calif., native owns the conference’s second-best points per set average of 5.04.
Okpala led the 49ers with a .328 hitting percentage, a mark that was third in the Big West, and ranked among the conference leaders in kills, blocks, hitting percentage, and points scored in Big West play.
Uiato, Hawai'i's junior setter, started all 30 contests for the Rainbow Wahine and placed second in the league with a 10.43 assist average. Uiato also hit .321 on the season and averaged 2.29 digs per set.
Winkler highlighted her senior year by breaking several dig records, including the Big West Conference’s career mark after eclipsing the previous mark of 2,164. With 2,260 digs, Winkler became the only Anteater to reach the 2000-dig plateau in the UCI career record books and the 5-8 talent also scooped up the UCI season record with 676.
Formico made an immediate impact, not just in the Big West, but in the nation. Hailing from Mountain View, Calif., the 5-foot 7-inch libero notched 792 digs during her freshman campaign, shattering the Big West record of 652 scoops set by former Gaucho Chelsey Lowe in 2011. On the national front, Formico concluded the regular season with the country’s highest dig total, while ranking eighth in digs per set average (5.87).
Roenicke led the 49ers to a .228 season hitting percentage and paced the Big West with 10.75 assists per set, while Johnson led the 49ers in both kills and digs during the 2012 season.
University of Hawai’i coach, Shoji, was selected as AVCA West Region Coach of the Year after guiding the Rainbow Wahine to their sixth Big West Conference title with a perfect 18-0 mark. Shoji also claimed his 1,100th victory this season and is just three wins from tying UCLA’s Andy Banachowski for first in the nation in career wins with a minimum 10 years as a Division I head coach since 1982.