WKU placed five players on the all-conference teams. In addition, senior setter Caron Blotch was named the conference Player of the Year, middle hitter Megan Argabright took Freshman-of-the-Year honors, and head coach Travis Hudson was named the league Coach of the Year. Blotch and Argabright were joined by senior outside hitters Jessie Wagner and Crystal Towler on the all-Sun Belt first team, and sophomore middle hitter Jenna Gideon was named to the second team. Each team consists of eight players.
“I’m really excited to see so many of our players get recognized,” said Hudson. “Sometimes you worry with so many players having good years that somebody will get left out. I think all five of those young ladies were very, very deserving of the honors.”
Blotch becomes the third Lady Topper to be named the Sun Belt Player of the Year, joining Kim Carpenter (1998) and Sara Noe (2002). She also joins Noe, Natalie Furry and Amanda Schiff as the only Lady Toppers in history to earn all-Sun Belt honors three times. Since joining the Lady Toppers in 2003 after transferring from Texas, Blotch has recorded over 4,000 assists and ranks third on WKU’s career list. She enters the SBC Tournament as the league leader in assists at 13.22 per game, which is the 18th best average in the nation. She also ranks fifth in the Sun Belt with a .354 hitting percentage. This season, Blotch has guided the Lady Toppers to a .334 team hitting percentage this season — the third best in the country.
Four of Blotch’s main offensive targets joined her all-Sun Belt team, led by the league‘s top rookie Argabright. The 6-foot-1 middle hitter becomes the first Lady Topper to ever win the Sun Belt Freshman-of-the-Year award, and is the only WKU freshman ever to earn all-conference honors. This season, she leads the Sun Belt and is ranked seventh in the nation with a .409 hitting percentage — the best hitting percentage of any freshman in the country. In addition, Argabright ranks fourth in the Sun Belt in kills per game (3.81) and seventh in blocks per game (1.06). She has posted double-figure kills in 25 of Western’s 30 matches, and hit .400 or better in 15 outings.
Towler and Wagner both earned all-conference honors for the second time in their careers, but it is the first time each have been named to the first team. Wagner — a second-team selection in 2004 — ranks ninth in the league with a .305 hitting percentage, while ranking second on the Lady Topper squad with 3.53 kills per game. Earlier in the season she moved into second on Western’s career kills list, and is one of just two players in school history to record over 1,500 kills.
Towler — an all-Sun Belt second teamer in 2003 — ranks third on that same career kills list with 1,425 entering the conference tournament. This season, she is third in the league in both hitting percentage (.348) and service aces per game (.046). She has finished with double-digit kills 12 times this season, while also adding six matches with 10 or more digs. In conference matches, Towler leads the league with a .464 hitting percentage.
Gideon rounds out the all-conference group with a second-team selection. She stands second in the Sun Belt and 10th in the nation with a .407 hitting percentage, while also averaging 3.12 kills per game. She has recorded double-figure kills in 18 matches, including eight times against Sun Belt schools. On Oct. 25 against Belmont, Gideon tied an NCAA record when she posted 10 kills on 10 attempts for a perfect 1.000 hitting percentage. In addition to her offensive numbers, Gideon has recorded 92 total blocks — an average of 0.93 blocks per game.
After leading the Lady Toppers to the best regular season in school history and the second perfect conference mark in the last four years, Hudson earned the league Coach-of-the-Year award for the third time in his career. He also took the honor in 2000 and 2002. Hudson is already the winningest coach in Lady Topper volleyball history with a career record of 242-122. He ranks second in career Sun Belt victories with 101, trailing only Arkansas-Little Rock’s Van Compton. Hudson joins Arkansas State head coach Craig Cummings and former South Florida coach Debbie Richardson as the only coaches to win the SBC Coach-of-the-Year award three times in their career.
The top-seeded Lady Toppers will open play in the 2005 Aeropostale Sun Belt Conference Tournament on Thursday (Nov. 17) at noon (CST) against Troy at Middle Tennessee’s Alumni Memorial Gym. The winner of that match will advance to take on the winner between Arkansas-Little Rock and North Texas at 5 p.m. on Friday. The championship match is set for 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, and will be televised on Sun Belt Regional Television.
The entire tournament is also available via live streaming on the Internet for $9.95 at www.sunbeltsports.org.
