Rhodes College Takes Three of Four Major Volleyball Awards

SUWANEE, Ga. - On the heels of the program’s most successful season, which included a first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Tournament, Rhodes College was rewarded with three of the four major awards in exclusive all-conference voting by the head coaches of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC). Katherine Delavan was selected as Freshman-of-the-Year, Laura Reilly was voted Backrow Player-of-the-Year and Lynx head coach Sam Lambert was named SCAC Coach-of-the-Year.

In that same voting, Sara Buros of Trinity University was selected as the SCAC Player-of-the-Year – the 13th time a Trinity Tiger has taken home the league’s biggest award.

Buros received four first-place votes from the coaches to earn Player-of-the-Year honors, while Austin College’s Veronica Stephens and Rhodes’ Crystal Jessee received two votes each. Rhodes’ Delavan and Centre College’s Kate Bennett both received one vote. Delavan, a first-year outside hitter from San Antonio, Texas, finished the regular season fourth in the league in kills (469), fifth in kills per game (3.53) and eighth in hitting percentage at .304. A SCAC Player-of-the-Week selection in Week 8, Delavan was one of just two freshmen named to the 2006 AVCA All-South Region team. She is the first Rhodes player to earn the league’s Freshman-of-the-Year award.

Delavan was the coaches’ clear choice for Freshman-of-the-Year honors, garnering eight votes in the process. Amy Mittelstaedt of Trinity and Alison Burt of Oglethorpe Universityeach received one vote.

Reilly, a junior libero from Louisville, Ky., led the SCAC in digs, posting 763 during the regular season which is already the third-highest single-season total in league history. She averaged 5.74 digs as well as 0.38 service aces per game after making the transition to libero for the Lynx this season.

Reilly received five votes in earning the Backrow Player-of-the-Year award. Samantha Lingamfelter of Southwestern University received three votes and Leah Goldstein of Trinity received two votes.

Lambert led Rhodes to a 15-3 conference mark; 27-11 overall, and a second-place finish in the 2006 SCAC standings – the program’s highest finish since 1992. It was a season of first for the Lynx, who entered the AVCA national rankings for the first time three weeks ago and moved all the way to a No. 17 ranking in the final regular season poll. Rhodes was also awarded with the program’s first-ever NCAA berth, giving the SCAC a record four teams in the field of 60.

The COTY honor is the second for Lambert, who shared the award with Trinity’s Julie Jenkins in 2004.