Twelve Missouri Valley Conference volleyball student-athletes have been named to the 2011 MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team by a vote of the league’s volleyball sports information directors.  An additional nine student-athletes have earned honorable mention, the league office announced today.

This year’s first team includes five players that have received previous MVC volleyball scholar-athlete recognition, including four repeat first team honorees and one unanimous selection, in Indiana State’s Shelbi Fouty (3.98 GPA, Elementary Education).  Four members of the first team also boast perfect 4.00 GPAs (Drake’s Emily Heffernen, UNI’s Shelby Kintzel and Illinois State’s Shannon McGlaughlin and Tabitha Visk).

The first team also includes Megan Bober of Creighton, Kristin Stauter of Illinois State, Ashley Mason of Missouri State, Amy Braun, Michelle Burow and Jenny Willms of UNI and Mary Elizabeth Hooper of Wichita State. 

Six Valley first team scholar-athletes – Braun, Burow, Fouty, Hooper, Kintzel and McGlaughlin - were also members of their respective Capital One/CoSida Academic All-District Teams.

Forty-five 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)..