Hawaii women’s volleyball: VIDEO Norene Iosia honorable mention All-America
Hawaii senior Norene Iosia today was named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America honorable mention team, one of 41 players so honored.
Iosia, the Big West Player of the Year, played both setter and hitter when helping the Rainbow Wahine to their first conference title since 2016. Hawaii (26-4) advanced to the NCAA tournament third round, losing to Nebraska last Friday.
AVCA All-America honorable mention Norene Iosia put #HawaiiWVB’s 26-4 season and her final year of indoor college volleyball in perspective. pic.twitter.com/d7tApo658M
— Hawaii Warrior World (@hawaiiwworld) December 19, 2019
Two other Big West players were named to the 14-member third team in UC Santa Barbara senior hitter Lindsey Ruddins and Cal Poly junior hitter Maia Dvoracek.
Iosia was a four-time first-team All-Big West selection and, this season, was a first-team All-Pacific North pick. Iosia finished her career tied for second in aces with Martina Cincerova (139), is eighth in digs (1,175) and ninth in assists (3,148).
Hawaii also did not have an AVCA All-American last season, just the fifth time dating back to 1981. No Wahine has been selected to the first three teams since senior middle blocker Emily Maglio was on the second team in 2017.
Also named to honorable mention was Utah sophomore setter Saige Ka‘aha‘aina-Torres (‘Iolani).
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Not sure how the Player of the Year gets passed over for at least third team when Ruddins and Dvoracek make it on the third.
Complete release click here.
Like you I was surprised that Norene Iosia did not make third team All-American while Maia Dvoracek and Lindsey Ruddins did. I guess they looked at kills per set and also aces per set. True that Norene had more aces in one single match, but Maia topped the Big West Conference in aces per set. I had originally thought that all three would make All-American honors. Maybe another reason is that Norene missed that critical serve in the first set. Had she aced it or forced an overpass, UH would have at least won the first set. She also missed an important serve in the third set. If Norene had been instrumental in winning the first and third sets, I bet they would have awarded her third team All-American. But then UH reached Sweet 16 whereas Cal Poly and UCSB did not. Go figure.
The Wahine can make a statement by beating a ranked team this coming Spring (Mar.?) They did pretty well against Texas this year. Would be nice to know what school is coming. I believe Norene can play one last time?
I personally like the new AVCA guidelines for their All-American selection. While I would have liked Norene to have made the 3rd Team, denying Lindsey Ruddins and Maia Dvoracek would be just flat out wrong. IMO, Lindsey should have been recognized last year.
The same thing happened with Maglio. She made it over TVW. Sometimes the other players just have better stats and norenes impact went beyond stats
Congrats, Norene!
No. 3, agree about Ruddins. Disagree about Dvoracek, she is a good player, but not in the same class as Ruddins, at least not yet. Norene deserved better but her “split” duties probably did not help her cause. You could argue she deserved better than honorable mention, for sure.
Now, some are likely to disagree, but a player like JR, if she had played healthy for the year, and had the kind of year you would have expected from her, would probably be somewhere on one of the AA teams.
In all due respect, Magda Jehlárová, while a good player, would not have been our choice. There are a few others we would disagree with, but that is more in regards more to placement rather than choice. Just shows how much talent there is throughout the country, and the parity we can expect in coming years. And, there are players who did not even get recognition that in our opinion, certainly deserve it. Sound familiar?
And, Dana Rettke would be our choice behind Plummer.
2. beating a ranked team in spring would mean nothing. neither squad is what they would be in fall. That Hawaii almost beat Texas last spring when they barely had enough players (flu) to play and Williams had to play middle the whole time … it meant nothing other than what the returning players were building on with some of the transfers coming in early.
Not sure if there will be a spring match. Ah Mow said something about going to Kauai.
A big thank you to our Brian McInnis for getting to the press conference with Iosia on Wednesday. I was at the airport
Big West is only the Big West conference season, right?
Iosia played 3 rotations for at least 1/3 of the season and didn’t have nearly enough good numbers for all american.
Great job Brian, as always!!