Women's Volleyball Puts Seven on All-Conference Team as Foley, Rousset-Hernandez and Coaching Staff Earn Major Awards
HUNTINGDON, PA- As the 17th consecutive Landmark Conference champions (43 total conference championships) and #1 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA)-ranked team in the country, Juniata women's volleyball prepares to kick off another NCAA tournament run on Thursday night. This year, their success has earned them the Landmark Conference awards of Specialist of the Year, Player of the Year, and Coaching Staff of the Year, to go along with six first-team all-conference selections and one second-team all-conference selection.
We've got a lot to cover, so stay with me.
At libero, Kiona Sky Rousset-Hernandez earned Specialist of the Year, becoming just the second player in Landmark history, alongside former Juniata standout Megan Sollenberger (2007-09), to win the award on three separate occasions. Rousset-Hernandez is leading the conference in service aces with 56, averaging 0.71 per set. Remarkably, four of the top five players in this category are Eagles. Rousset-Hernandez was also second in the conference in digs, averaging 4.92 per set. Passing the milestone of 2,000 career digs this season, she was one of the Eagles' six first-team all-conference selections, making this her second consecutive season on the first team after earning second-team all-conference selections in her first two seasons. Rousset-Hernandez also earned Landmark Athlete of the Week honors twice this season, first on September 3 and later on September 16.
Like all setters, Olivia Foley had plenty of assists this season, but no one made them as efficiently as she has this year. Literally, no one. Foley is number one in the nation in D3 women's volleyball in assists per set (11.94). Early in the year, she earned the AVCA National Player of the Week award on the same day she earned the Landmark Athlete of the Week award, September 10. She earned the Player of the Year award in the Landmark Conference, leading the conference in assists with 870 despite playing more than 20 fewer sets than any other player in the top eight assist leaders in the conference. She also passed the career milestones of 4,000 assists and 1,000 digs this season. And let me remind you, she's not done yet. After earning first-team all-conference selection in each of her first three years, Foley has now gone four for four in earning first-team all-conference selection as a Landmark Conference athlete.
Head coach Heather Pavlik, assistant coach Casey Dale, and student assistants Erin Smith, Jeremiah Burden, Emma Pinkston, and Kate Hutton earned the coaching staff of the year award, leading the Eagles to an unscathed 29-0 record so far where they have dropped a mere three sets all year. The undefeated regular season record is the fifth in program history, as it was achieved in 1977, 1996, 2003, 2023, and now 2024. The coaching staff's leadership has been constant, consistent, and reliable all year long, and many of the players have noted just how huge of a role they play in the team's success. This also marks the eighth time Pavlik has earned the award as a head coach and the program's third consecutive time as a recipient of the award.
Mackenzie Coley earned her third straight first-team all-conference selection this year, and like Foley, she currently sits atop all of D3 women's volleyball in hitting percentage at .428. As you should be able to tell, Coley is, of course, the leader in the Landmark Conference in hitting percentage (.428), in kills per set, averaging 3.63, and in points per set, averaging 4.12. Coley also ranks ninth in the conference in blocks per set at 0.58. Coley earned her Landmark Athlete of the Week award on October 28, roughly two weeks after she passed the 1,000-kill milestone for her collegiate career.
Outside hitter, Kennedy Christy earned first-team all-conference selection for the first time in her career this year after being placed on the second team twice before, in 2021 and last year in 2023. She was second in the conference in kills, only behind Coley, totaling 216 on the season so far in 71 sets played. Christy is also averaging the second most points per set at 3.72, only behind Coley, and the fifth most aces per set in the conference with her average of 0.49, coming off of 35 aces in 71 sets played. Christy earned two Landmark Athlete of the Week awards on September 3 and October 28.
Outside hitter, Audrey Muth earned a first-team all-conference selection this season for the first time in her career after being named to the second team in 2023 and in 2022, when she won the Rookie of the Year award. Muth ranked seventh in the conference in hitting percentage at .301 with two Eagles ahead of her and 13th in the conference in kills per set at 2.35. She has totaled 176 kills with 21 blocks and 40 digs on the year.
Courtney Williams is a Landmark All-Conference player for the second time in her career, with this being her first selection to the first team. As a middle hitter, her hitting percentage of .337 has placed her fourth in the conference in that category in a season in which she also had a career-high performance with 15 kills against Elizabethtown on October 11. She has totaled 148 kills with 36 blocks and 12 digs on the year.
Lily Podolan earned second-team all-conference selection for the second consecutive season after being placed on the first team as a sophomore. She is just behind Muth at eighth in the conference in hitting percentage (.286), seventh in the conference in kills, averaging 2.67 per set, and 11th in the conference in points per set, averaging 2.85. She earned landmark athlete of the week honors on September 16 and just recently achieved her 1,000th career kill in the Eagles' 3-0 sweep of Scranton University in the Landmark Championship.
The #1 Juniata Eagles have been selected to host the regional rounds of the NCAA tournament, which will begin for Juniata this Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. when they take on #8 seed Penn State Altoona in the first round. The matchup is a repeat of last year's tournament when the Eagles defeated the Nittany Lions 3-0.
The Eagles are 29-0 heading into the NCAA tournament.