Twelve Missouri Valley Conference volleyball student-athletes have been named to the 2012 MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team by a vote of the league’s volleyball sports information directors.  An additional 13 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 five repeat first team honorees. One member of the first team boasts a perfect 4.00 GPA (UNI’s Shelby Kintzel).

The first team also includes Creighton's Megan Bober and Brooke Boggs, Evansville's Ashley Ring, Missouri State's Andrea Beaty and Ashley Mason, UNI's Amy Braun and Macy Ubben, Southern Illinois' Rachael Brown, Alysia Mayes and Bailey Yeager and Wichita State's Elizabeth Field

Four Valley first team scholar-athletes – Bober, Boggs, Mayes and Yeager – were also members of their respective Capital One/CoSida Academic All-District Teams.

Forty-two 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).