Junior was one of the top offensive players in the nation
 Twelve Missouri Valley Conference volleyball student-athletes have been named to the 2018 MVC Scholar-Athlete First-Team by a vote of the league’s volleyball sports information directors, with approval from head coaches. An additional 10 student-athletes have earned honorable mention, the league office announced today.
Included on the First Team was Purple Aces junior Rachel Tam. The Exercise Science major has posted a 3.76 GPA in her time at UE. Tam posted 4.21 kills per set in 2018, ranking second in the MVC. She had a total of 492 kills and set her career mark with 29 against Western Illinois.
This year’s first-team includes seven players that have received previous MVC volleyball scholar-athlete recognition, including five repeat first-team honorees, including Bradley’s Erica Haslag, Illinois State’s Ali Line and Courtney Pence, Missouri State’s Emily Butters and Valparaiso’s Allison Ketcham. Illinois State’s Ali Line and Missouri State’s Emily Butters are three-time first team honorees. One member of the first team boasts a perfect 4.00 GPA, in Illinois State’s Ali Line.
Four Valley first team scholar-athletes – Bradley’s Haslag, Illinois State’s Line and Valparaiso’s Ketcham and Rylee Cookerly – were also members of their respective CoSida Academic All-District Teams.
Forty-two student-athletes were nominated for the Valley’s scholar-athlete team. The criterion for the honor parallels the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) standards for Google Cloud Academic All-America voting. Nominees must be starters or important reserves with at least a 3.20 cumulative GPA (on a 4.00 scale). Also, students must have participated in at least 75-percent of the regular-season matches. Student-athletes must have reached sophomore status in both athletic and academic standing at their institution (true freshmen and redshirt freshmen were not eligible).
