Nov. 20, 2008
GREENSBORO, N.C. ---- Senior outside hitter Ashley Adams was named Southern Conference Volleyball Player of the Year Thursday evening at the SoCon Tournament Awards Banquet held at the Empire Room in downtown Greensboro, N.C. Along with Adams, three other Bulldogs received all-Conference honors which were presented to them by Katy McNay, Assistant Athletic Director/Senior Women's Administrator at Davidson College and Chair of the SoCon Volleyball Committee.
The evening started out with opening remarks by SoCon Associate Commissioner Sue Arakas, UNC Greensboro Senior Women's Administrator Cathy Roberts and SoCon Commissioner John Iamarino followed by dinner. The season's Players of the Week, Players of the Month and Student-Athlete of the Week were then recognized as Adams and Hillary Fountain were recognized as Player of the Week three times and twice, respectively, while Adams was Player of the Month for September.
The All-Freshman team was then named which included Samford's Rachel Gadberry, College of Charleston's Elyse Chubb and Emily Shelton, Elon's Caroline Lemke and Traci Stewart and Georgia Southern's Bethany Sanford.
The Southern Conference All-Conference First Team included Samford's Adams and Fountain, College of Charleston's Cole Dawley, UNC Greensboro's Kayren Finney and Branagan Fuller and Chattanooga's Lara Newberry. Kirstein Sosnowski was joined on the Second Team be College of Charleston's Emily Sawin, Elyse Chubb, Furman's Alison West and Nicole Palazzo and UNC Greensboro's Kaitlyn Nortz.
Adams was Player of the Year, Chattanooga's Newberry was Libero of the Year and Charleston's Elyse Chubb was Freshman of the Year. College of Charleston's Jason Kepner was named Coach of the Year.
Samford was also presented with the trophy for the North Division regular-season championship while College of Charleston received the same for the South Division regular-season championship. Samford is the first team in Southern Conference history to win a regular-season division title in its first year as a member of the league.
"I'm very proud of our girls. The awards they received tonight are a testament of the hard work and dedication that they put in this season," Samford head coach Derek Schroeder said.
The All-Conference, All-Freshman, Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year, Libero of the Year and Coach of the Year award were chosen by the leagues 12 head coaches. All weekly and monthly awards are voted on by sports information directors from each conference institution.
The Bulldogs will play in the first round of the SoCon Tournament Friday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. against South Division No. 4 seed Davidson. Live stats and video streaming will be available for each match on www.soconsports.com and a full recap and results can be found at www.samfordsports.com upon the completion of the match.
