I mentioned in the comments of the last volleyball post that the UT Arlington Mavericks squad should be well represented. The awards and all-conference teams were announced by the Western Athletic Conference today and as a whole, it came to fruition.
I'll start with Player of the Year. While some teams had an impact player or two, it is hard to suppress what graduate student Brianna Ford did at her outside hitter position. She led the WAC in kills, kills per set, points and was fourth in hitting percentage, sixth in blocks, seventh in aces, ninth in blocks per set and tenth in digs. Were she playing on another team, some of those numbers would likely be higher as UTA spread the wealth around. UTA would have been good without her, but her presence on both the offensive and defensive side is what propelled the Mavs to their highest win total in three and a half decades.
Ford is the ninth Player of the Year in program history and the first since Olaya Pazo in 2002.