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AVCA Announces 2007 All-Region Teams and Coaches of the Year
UNLV head coach Allison Keeley named West Region Coach of the Year. Eight MWC student-athletes named All-West Region.
Dec. 5, 2007 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The 2007 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-Region Teams were announced Wednesday, Dec. 5. UNLV head coach Allison Keeley was named AVCA West Region Coach of the Year and eight Mountain West athletes were named to the West Region squad. BYU's Chelsea Goodman (Sr., OH) and Rachel Dyer (Jr., MB), Colorado State's Mekana Barnes (Jr., MB), Ashley Fornstrom (Jr., S) and Jaime Strauss (Jr., OH), and UNLV's Lauren Miramontes (Sr., MB) were honored. The Cougars' Erica Lott (Sr., RS/Opp) and Utah's Lori Baird (Jr., MB) were named honorable mention. The eight all-region volleyball selections ties last year's total as the most ever for the Mountain West in its nine-year history. This season marks the ninth straight that the Mountain West Conference was represented on the AVCA All-Region squad. Since 1999, 44 MWC student-athletes have earned all-region accolades and 11 have gone on to All-America status. An additional 10 student-athletes were honorable mention All-Americans. The 2007 All-America team will be announced on Dec. 13. Under Keeley's direction, UNLV turned in its most successful campaign in program history, winning its first-ever Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time. Keeley guided UNLV to its highest overall win total since 1998 and its highest finish as members of the MWC (tied for second) with a 12-4 conference record, the most league wins for the program since 1979. She also guided the Rebels to the program's first-ever appearance in the CSTV/AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 Poll, where they stood at No. 25 for two consecutive weeks. In addition, UNLV achieved only its fourth-ever 20-win campaign, with two of those four seasons coming under the mentorship of Keeley. Keeley and the seven other regional winners will make up the 2007 AVCA National Coach of the Year ballot. The awards will be officially presented at the 2007 Jostens Coaches Honors Luncheon in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 13, at the 2007 AVCA Convention. Dyer, an Encinitas, Calif., native, leads the MWC in hitting percentage (.414, currently ninth in the nation) and is fifth in blocks per game (1.30), while ranking ninth in points per game (4.23). She is a two-time all-conference selection and was voted as the MWC Player of the Week on Nov. 5. Goodman, a 5-11 junior from Mesa, Ariz., is currently second in the MWC with 5.13 points per game and third in kills per game (4.40) and service aces per game (0.35). She holds the all-time MWC record in career double-doubles with 57 and was named to the all-conference team for the third straight year in 2007. Barnes, the 2007 MWC Player of the Year, led the Rams to their fifth outright MWC regular-season title. Barnes leads the league and ranks fourth nationally in blocks per game (1.65). She is second in the league in hitting percentage (.401, 12th nationally), fourth in points per game (5.09) and eighth in kills per game (3.93). Barnes set a new MWC all-time record in total blocks with 19.0 on Sept. 21 and was honored as the MWC Player of the Week four times this season. Barnes was also one of two Conference players to be named AVCA Sports Imports/AVCA Division I National Player of the Week in 2007. Fornstrom, a Cheyenne, Wyo., native, earned her first all-region selection after ranking first in the MWC with 13.72 assists per game in overall matches (currently eighth nationally). In conference matches, she tallied 788 total assists (14.55 per game) which surpassed her previous career season-best of 760, set in 2006, as the all-time high in MWC history. Fornstrom was named MWC Player of the Week on Oct. 22, and is one of two current Conference players to have more than one triple-double for their career. Strauss, an all-conference selection and MWC Player of the Week honoree in 2007, ranked second in the league in kills (4.81) and points (5.35) per game in conference matches. In overall matches, she is currently fifth in kills per game and (4.21) and sixth in points per game (4.85). Miramontes, an honorable mention all-region selection in 2005, was the 2007 MWC Tournament MVP after leading UNLV to its first-ever tournament championship. She set new tourney records for kills in a tournament (83), overall kills in a match (34), kills in a championship match and overall attempts in a match (86). On the season, she averaged 4.65 kills per game (currently tied for first in the Conference), while leading UNLV in total kills (521), hitting percentage (.296), total blocks (132) and blocks per game (1.18). Miramontes was awarded league player of the week accolades four times this season and was named both Sports Imports/AVCA Divison I National Player of the Week and CVU.com National Player of the Week on Nov. 26, marking the first time in the history of the MWC that a player has garnered both national awards in the same week.
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