AUSTIN, Texas - Marquette University senior outside hitter Allie Barber headlines the 2019 Academic All-America Division I volleyball team selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and announced Monday.
Barber has been named the 2019 Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for Division I volleyball.
A biomedical sciences major with a 3.98 GPA from Cedarburg, Wis., Barber is the first volleyball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year selection in the history of the BIG EAST. The senior also becomes the first BIG EAST volleyball two-time Academic All-America first team selection after earning first team honors in 2018. Barber was named the Big East Player of the Year for the second time, also earning the honor in 2017, and helped guide Marquette to its ninth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Barber led the league all season with 4.61 kills per set all matches, 4.52 kills in BIG EAST matches and was fourth, hitting at a .313 clip. She was second in points per set tallying 4.78 and became Marquette's all-time kills leader in her final season. She was named BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week on six occasions and is just the fourth player in 30 years to repeat as BIG EAST Player of the Year.
Creighton's Brittany Witt also earned Academic All-America honors. Witt , who owns a 3.86 GPA in Exercise Science, is a Third Team CoSIDA Academic All-American selection. The Omaha, Neb., native was named BIG EAST Libero of the Year for the second time in her career in 2019 after leading the league with 5.09 digs per set. The senior had nine or more digs in all 31 matches this fall, and finished with a school-record 2,079 career digs. Witt had a career-high 35 digs in a win at No. 10 Marquette on October 12th and was named First Team All-BIG EAST for the second time in her career. Witt will graduate in May from Creighton.
Of the 21 members of the 2019 CoSIDA Academic All-America Division I volleyball team, 15 have at least a 3.90 GPA, with 12 student-athletes sporting a 4.0 GPA or better. Six of the seven members of the first team all have a GPA of 3.98 or better.
CoSIDA, which stands for College Sports Information Directors of America, takes into account the academic and athletic achievements of student-athletes, and began honoring student-athletes in 1952. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) at his/her current institution. Nominated athletes must have participated in at least 50 percent of the team's games, and no student-athlete is eligible until he/she has completed one full calendar year at his/her current institution and has reached sophomore athletic eligibility. In the cases of transfers, graduate students and two-year college graduates, the student-athlete must have completed one full calendar year at the nominating institution to be eligible. Graduate students who are competing at a different institution than the one from which they earned their undergraduate degree are eligible even if they are in their first semester at the graduate institution.
See below for the full list of Academic All-America honorees.
FIRST TEAM
Name School Yr. GPA Major
Allie Barber (1) Marquette University Sr. 3.98 Biomedical Sciences
Madison Green (2) Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Sr. 4.00 Biology
Sydney Hilley University of Wisconsin Jr. 3.79 Genetics & Genomics
Meghan McClure Stanford University Jr. 4.00 Science, Technology & Society
Samantha McLean (3) Michigan State University Sr. 4.00 Pre-Medicine / Kinesiology
Leah Meyer University of Kentucky Gr. 4.00 MBA
Paige Miles U.S. Naval Academy Sr. 4.00 Quantitative Economics
SECOND TEAM
Name School Yr. GPA Major
Camryn Allen Towson University Jr. 4.00 Biology
Whitney Brown Robert Morris University Jr. 4.00 Biology
Audriana Fitzmorris Stanford University Sr. 3.51 Human Biology
Paulina Hougaard-Jensen Colorado State University Sr. 3.96 Business Administration
Laura Masciullo Hofstra University Sr. 3.97 Mathematical Business Economics
Jordan Thompson University of Cincinnati Gr. 3.59 /3.67 Criminal Justice
Micaya White University of Texas Sr. 3.57 Psychology
THIRD TEAM
Name School Yr. GPA Major
Brynn Carlson Kansas State University Gr. 4.00 Nutrition, Dietectics & Sensory Sciences (G)
Morgan Hash (2) Georgia State University Sr. 4.00 Public Health
Amelia Johnson Liberty University Gr. 4.00 Interdisciplinary Studies (UG) / Public Health (G)
Katie Oleksak Colorado State University Sr. 3.79 Health & Exercise Science
Abby Stomp Northern Arizona University Sr. 4.00 Biology
Lauren Swartz Michigan State University Gr. 4.00 Economics (UG) / Marketing Research (G)
Brittany Witt Creighton University Sr. 3.86 Exercise Science
CoSIDA Academic All-America Team Member of the Year: Allie Barber, Marquette University
- = 2018 1st team Academic All-America
- = 2018 2nd team Academic All-America
- = 2018 3rd team Academic All-America