Maidens place four on All-Conference volleyball team
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Four Maiden seniors were honored for their play during the 2010 volleyball season last week when the All Northwestern A Conference Volleyball Team was announced.
Taylor Lynch and Alice Van Gunten were both named to the All-Conference first team while Marissa McCrea and Tailyr Irvine both made the squad as honorable mention selections.
“I think we are stepping in the right direction to have some of the girls noticed,” Ronan head coach Naomi Mock said. “I’m very proud of my girls. I had four seniors this year, and they all got chosen for awards.”
The selections of the four Maiden players was yet another sign of the team’s resurgence this season as it marked the first time in two years that a Ronan player had made the all-conference team. The last time Ronan players made the list was in 2008 when Kaylee Larson and Carli Starkel were second team selections and Kelsey Swalling was honorable mention.
Irvine led the conference in hitting percentage this season, scoring on 40 percent of her attacks while also finishing third in kills with 112.
“Tailyr was a monster. I started working with her as a freshman. and I don’t know if anyone else had given her the opportunity to do what she was able to do this year. I told her that the net was hers and she needed to take care of it, and she did. She is a presence at the net,” Mock said.
Van Gunten was fourth in the conference in kills with 109 this season and also finished sixth in assists with 114.
“Alice was a great player overall. She has a lot of valuable skills. She could do a little bit if everything,” Mock said.
Lynch finished the 2010 season fourth in the conference in assists with 154 to earn her spot on the second team.
“Taylor got to where she was being a leader on the floor. She was talking to the other girls and helping them get to where they needed to be,” Mock said. “She really stepped up for us.”
McCrea led the conference in digs with 211 and was the only Ronan player to receive a number one vote in the selection process.
“Marissa was our defense. She has a great eye for the ball and she did great things for us,” Mock said. “She’s a great kid to be around and a lot of fun to have on the team.”
While Mock said she is very happy with her players making the all-conference team, she said that she wished some of her players would have been ranked a little higher.
“I was hoping that some of my players that were very high in the conference stats would have been a little higher ranked, but our success was also kind of unexpected and that might have had something to do with it,” she said. “At the coaches meeting, not everything was judged on stats. A lot of it was about who works hard and which players were leaders for their team. It was very interesting to me. It was different from what I was expecting.”
