Railey And Bottles Named First Team All-SLC
11/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 18, 2008
FRISCO, Texas - Senior Lauren Railey and freshman MC Bottles were named to the All-Southland Conference first team the league announced on Tuesday, with junior Ashley Bailey and sophomore Laurel Kuepker each earning honorable mention honors for the first time.
It is the fourth consecutive season that SFA has placed multiple players on the All-SLC first team, with the Ladyjacks having placed 12 players overall on the first team since 2004.
The honor is a career culmination for Railey, who has put together one of the most complete and standout careers in the history of Ladyjack volleyball. It is her second consecutive All-SLC first team selection, after earning second team honors in 2006 and third team honors in 2005 in addition to being named the 2005 SLC Freshman of the Year.
She finished this year ranked in the top fourth in the SLC in kills with a 3.29 per set average, and service aces with a 0.39 per set average, and closed out the year playing her best volleyball of the season, hitting double-figure kills in each of her last 10 matches. She also pulled out double-doubles in seven of those 10 matches.
Railey will finish her career ranked in the top five at SFA in career kills, attacks and digs and the top 10 in service aces. Earlier this season she became the first ever Ladyjack, and only the eighth player in the history of the SLC to accumulate 1,500 kill and 1,500 digs in her career.
"She's very deserving of first team all conference," head coach Debbie Humphreys said. "She has been very consistent, especially recently she has just been playing some great volleyball. Lauren has just been handling a huge chunk of passing and offensive load, and for her to go out as a first team selection, I think she is very deserving after the career she has had."
Bottles has come in and been a consistent force every night for the Ladyjacks at the net as a freshman. The Rowlett, Texas, native is one of three freshmen on the All-SLC first team, the first freshmen to be named the conference first team since UTSA's Meagan Daniel in 2003.
Bottles was inserted into the starting lineup in the second weekend of the season at SMU, helping the Ladyjacks pull out a five-set win over the Mustangs and helping start a 13-match win streak for SFA, the longest win streak in the SLC this season.
She finished third in the league with a .347 hitting percentage, averaging 2.55 kills per set this season, along with ranking ninth in the league with 0.88 blocks per set. She landed a season-best 19 kills in a sweep of McNeese State on Oct. 4 and hit over .400 eight times this year. Her most efficient night was at UTA on Nov. 1 when she scored 17 kills with only a single error on 21 swings for a .762 attack percentage in a sweep of the Mavs.
She also earned a SLC Defensive Player of the Week honor on Sept. 22 after rejecting 15 shots in a three-match span at the Spike Ike Classic in Denton, Texas.
"MC's been dependable, even though you expect freshmen to be very up and down, but she's been consistent," Humphreys said. "You know what you are going to get from her every day, not just on the court but with her personality. That kind of player is going to grow tremendously by the time she is a senior and is it is scary to thin of what she is going to accomplish by the time her career comes to an end three years from now."
Bailey and Kuepker each earned their first postseason honors as well, being named honorable mention all-conference. Bailey was a preseason all-conference selection and followed that up by leading the league with a 1.01 blocks per set average and finishing fifth in the league with a .312 hitting percentage.
Kuepker finished second in the league in digs by just a slight margin behind SLC Libero of the Year Kelsey Jewasko of UTSA. Kuepker earned SLC Defensive Player of the Week four times this season, the most of any player in the league and held the single-match dig mark in the league this season with 36 in a win over SMU in early September.
"You want those kids to be recognized and they have done a lot of good things for us this year," Humphreys said. "Of course I think they deserve to be higher than just honorable mention, but there are a lot of good players out there in this league, and it is nice to know that there are others around the conference that have certainly recognized what they are doing on the court."
The Ladyjacks finished the season 20-8 overall after closing out the regular season last week with wins over Southeastern Louisiana and Nicholls, giving SFA its fifth straight 20-win season. SFA will hold the No. 4 overall seed in this weekend's Southland Conference Tournament that will be held in Nacogdoches at Johnson Coliseum beginning Friday at 11:00 a.m.
SFA takes on No. 5 Sam Houston State in the final match of the day on Friday at 6:30 p.m. A win would put SFA in the semifinals against the winner of No. 1 Texas State and No. 8 Northwestern State on Saturday at 4:00 p.m.
Click HERE for a the complete All-SLC release.
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