The West Virginia University Athletics Communications Office was honored by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), capturing 21 awards for Excellence in Publications and Graphic Design, including 17 best in the nation awards. It is the third year in a row the West Virginia University Athletics Communications Office has led the country in CoSIDA awards.
The 21 publications and graphic design awards WVU received from CoSIDA are the most earned among Division I schools. Oklahoma was second with nine awards, followed by Princeton with six.
Earning best in the nation awards for media guides were baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, swimming & diving, women’s tennis and volleyball. For media guide covers, baseball, women’s basketball, golf, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, swimming & diving and volleyball garnered best in the nation honors. The golf and rifle media guides were second in the nation.
WVU’s baseball and football posters took top honors in that category. The golf poster was second in the nation, while the men’s basketball poster took third-place honors.
Lynch Named to Big 12 volleyball preseason team
The Big 12 announced its 2021 volleyball preseason awards, including the All-Big 12 Team, Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year.
West Virginia’s Briana Lynch was named to the 2021 volleyball preseason team for the second consecutive year. The 2020-21 All-Big 12 First Team honoree was a unanimous selection.
Lynch, a four-year player for the Mountaineers, played in all 86 sets and finished the 2020-21 season ranked No. 52 nationally with a .363 hitting efficiency. She hit above .400 11 times and recorded 223 kills, with just 41 errors, on 502 attacks. Lynch registered double-digit kills in 11 matches, including four of the last five contests. She also paced the Mountaineer defense with 1.06 blocks per set, registering 10 solo stops and 81 block assists.
Texas’ Logan Eggleston was the unanimous selection as Preseason Player of the Year after earning the Conference honor at the conclusion of the 2020-21 season. Caroline Bien is the second consecutive Kansas student-athlete to be named Preseason Freshman of the Year, following Caroline Crawford last season.
Bien was named as the PrepVolleyball.com No. 14 recruit in the country coming out of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park, Kansas. She was a 2020 AVCA Under Armour All-America First Team selection and played on the 2019 and 2020 state championship teams. The OH/libero tallied over 1,300 career digs and 1,000 career kills in her prep career while finishing third in program history in kills.
Fifteen student-athletes were named to the Preseason All-Big 12 Team. Except for Baylor newcomer Avery Skinner, all the others were members of the 2020-21 All-Big 12 First or Second Team. Eggleston and Skinner were unanimous selections along with Yossiana Pressley (Baylor), Aliyah Carter (Kansas State), Brionne Butler (Texas), Skylar Fields (Texas), Asjia O’Neal (Texas) and Lynch.
The preseason team and awards are voted on by the league’s head coaches who are not permitted to vote for their own players.
Mountaineers swim and dive teams again earn spring CSCAA recognition
The West Virginia men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams have been named to the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Scholar All-America team for their academic success during the 2021 spring semester.
The women’s team earned the honor for the 27th consecutive semester after recording a cumulative grade-point average of 3.56. The men earned a team GPA of 3.46 to collect the honor for the eighth consecutive semester and the ninth time in the last ten semesters.
“Coach [Vic] Riggs consistently produces winners in the pool and classroom and this year is no exception,” noted CSCAA Executive Director Greg Earhart said. “These are some of the best ambassadors of West Virginia and Athletic Director (Shane) Lyons, President (Gordon) Gee, and Dr. Maria Kolar (Faculty Athletic Representative) can and should be proud of these 59 men & women.”
“This recognition reflects both teams’ hard work and commitment to their academics,” Riggs said. “They’ve accepted every challenge handed to them this past year, and we’re proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish.”
In addition to the Mountaineers, every Big 12 swimming and diving program was named a Scholar All-America Team by the CSCAA. TCU and Texas earned the honor on the men’s and women’s sides, while Iowa State and Kansas received the recognition on the women’s list.
The award, presented twice a year, recognizes college swimming and diving teams who achieved a cumulative semester GPA of 3.0 or higher. In all, 721 programs from 426 schools were named to the Scholar All-America list for the 2021 spring semester.
Founded in 1922, the CSCAA is the nation’s first organization of college coaches. Its mission is to advance the sport of swimming and diving with coaches at the epicenter of leadership, advocacy, and professional development.
The CSCAA will announce its individual Scholar All-America selections next week.
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