Twelve Missouri Valley Conference volleyball student-athletes have been named to the 2010 MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team by a vote of the league's volleyball sports information directors and six additional student-athletes have earned honorable mention, the league office announced today.

This year's first team includes 10 players that have received previous MVC volleyball scholar-athlete recognition, including eight repeat first team honorees and two unanimous selections, Southern Illinois' Jennifer Berwanger (3.89 GPA, Therapeutic Recreation & Physical Therapy) and Beth Discher (4.00 GPA, Accounting).

The first team also includes Allie Oelke and Alicia Runge of Creighton, Angela Bys and Emily Heffernen of Drake, Tabitha Visk of Illinois State, Morgan Dall and Shelbi Fouty of Indiana State, Cara Hackmann of Missouri State, Alicia Johnson of Southern Illinois and Mary Elizabeth Hooper of Wichita State. 

Nine Valley first team scholar-athletes - Berwanger, Bys, Discher, Hackmann, Heffernen, Johnson, Oelke, Runge and Visk - were also members of their respective ESPN The Magazine/CoSida Academic All-District Teams.

Fifty 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 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) and must have completed at least one full academic year at their institution.