Fine Year for Volleyball Players

It’s no surprise when women’s volleyball players from Orange County are successful on the college level, but this has been an especially good season for several of them.

Heather Bown of Hawaii, who played at Esperanza High, was named co-player of the year in the Western Athletic Conference, and Roberta Gehlke of UC Santa Barbara, who played at Mater Dei, shared the player of the year honor in the Big West Conference.

Bown leads the nation in blocks with a 2.27 average. She also is averaging 4.16 kills and 1.77 digs. Gehlke ranks 10th nationally in kills per game with a 5.38 average.

Among those joining Bown on the All-WAC first team were teammate Jessica Sudduth (Esperanza) and San Jose State’s Michelle Sarkees (Santa Margarita). Two other Hawaii players, Jennifer Carey (Newport Harbor) and Jennifer Roberts (Calvary Chapel), were named to the second team.

Sarkees has 5,482 career assists, the third-best mark ever in the conference.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Kari DeSoto (Esperanza) and Long Beach State sophomore Tayyiba Haneef (Laguna Hills High) joined Gehlke on the All-Big West first team. DeSoto ranks fourth in the nation in hitting percentage at 41.6%.

Cal State Los Angeles junior Caryn Sale (Capistrano Valley High) was named California Collegiate Athletic Assn. player of the year this month. She had the third-best hitting percentage ever at the school (37.6%). Teammate Myeetsha Coffer (Orange High) also was a first-team selection.

Senior Kelly Campbell (Corona del Mar) is having another good season at Colorado. She is on track to break the NCAA career record for assists per game. She is averaging 14.37 assists; the record of 13.25 belongs to San Diego State’s Andrea Clark. Campbell has played in 422 consecutive games, the 10th-longest streak in NCAA history.

Oklahoma junior Cathy Cook (Irvine) is leading the Big 12 in hitting percentage (37.9%). Cook transferred to Oklahoma after two years at Portland, where she was West Coast Conference freshman of the year in 1997.

Both are expected to be contenders for Big 12 postseason honors.

NOTEWORTHY

St. Mary’s junior setter Whitney Hoover (Calvary Chapel) was the West Coast Conference player of the week in women’s volleyball recently. She had 54 assists and 14 digs against Portland and 26 assists and 14 digs against Gonzaga. Hoover is averaging 8.97 assists and 2.61 digs per game.

Duke senior Jami Ediger of La Habra was named Atlantic Coast Conference co-player of the week in women’s volleyball recently. She finished the week with 17 kills, 19 assists and 30 digs.

Lauren Belcher (Edison) helped lead her Manhattan College (New York) volleyball team to third place in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with a 19-11 record. Belcher was second on the team with 305 kills and ranked 10th in the conference in hitting percentage at 27.1%.

UC Santa Barbara senior Charlene Conley, from Orange High, was named to the all-district academic women’s volleyball team. Conley has a 3.67 grade-point average in environmental studies.