NCAA Woman of the Year nominees: WUSTL’s Fisher, MBBC’s DeLozier, Wartburg’s B. Sieck, Edgewood’s Palmer, UST’s Wachter, Dominican’s Guerrieri

Six outgoing Central/Midwest Region volleyball players have made the initial list of contenders for the NCAA Woman of the Year award. Among the 455 student-athletes across all divisions and sports vying for the award are: Washington-St. Louis setter Marilee Fisher; Maranatha Baptist Bible outside Torey DeLozier; Wartburg outside Britlyn Sieck; Edgewood outside Mallory Palmer; St. Thomas libero Kaiti Wachter; and Dominican setter Jessica Guerrieri.

From the release: The Woman of the Year award honors graduating female student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership.

Fisher was a four-time All-American, a starter on the 2009 national title squad, and led her teams to a 134-14 career record.

DeLozier twice led the nation in kills and points per set and was a two-time Northern Athletics Conference Player of the Year.

Sieck was a four-time first-team all-Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honoree and played in a program record 143 matches.

Palmer was a four-time first-team all-Northern Athletics Conference selection and was named the 2012 NAC Player of the Year.

Wachter ended her career ranked 12th all-time in career D-III digs and helped lead her team to the 2012 national championship.

Guerrieri was a two-time All-Northern Athletics Conference honoree.

Of the 455 total nominees, 151 played Division III sports. Each NCAA institution is encouraged to nominate one or two student-athletes for the Woman of the Year award. Each NCAA conference will select one or two nominees from the initial list for consideration by the national selection committee, which will announce 10 top honorees for each of the three divisions. Three from each division will then be named finalists for Woman of the Year in September. The top 30 nominees will be honored – and the one national winner will be announced – at a ceremony in Indianapolis on Oct. 20.

-Ricky Nelson

Getting up to speed on offseason happenings

OK. My D-III focus returns to volleyball now that the baseball season is complete. I last posted about new head coaches around the region in late February. It stands to reason that there have been other head coach announcements in the interim. Allow me to get up to speed with those.

• Wheaton (Ill.) named Brittany Smith as its new head coach. Smith was most recently the head coach at Taylor University.

• Loras named Jenna Ness as its new head coach. Ness was most recently an assistant coach at Saint Mary’s (Minn.). Ness replaces Teresa Kehe, who stepped down to accept a high school teaching and coaching position in Iowa.

• Finlandia named Kristan Schuster as its [interim] head coach. Schuster had been the Hancock (Mich.) High School head coach since 1997.

• Hamline named Becky Egan as its new head coach. Egan had been the head coach at Eastview (Minn.) High School since 2001.

• Alverno named Jimmy Muñoz as its new head coach. Muñoz was most recently an assistant at Bradley University. Muñoz replaces Paul Lawson, who coached the Inferno for three seasons.

• Concordia Wisconsin named Janelle Gabrielsen as its new head coach. Gabrielsen was most recently a graduate assistant at CUW.

• Crown named Joy Johnston as its new head coach. Johnston was most recently a club coach in Minnesota.

• Stacey White resigned as head coach at UW-Stevens Point in order to be closer to family in the Twin Cities area. A national search is underway.

Happy recruiting and camp season, coaches, players and parents. I’ll pop back in before the season starts if news warrants. I still have not been hired to work in a sports information department, so it’s looking like I’ll be around to watch plenty of volleyball again this season. I’m an optimist, so more volleyball is an awesome silver lining.

-Ricky Nelson