Feb. 4, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Reigning 2014 NCAA national champion Penn State women's volleyball earned two Volleyball Magazine All-America honors. Additionally, Ali Frantti earned Volleyball Magazine Freshman of the Year honors, while head coach Russ Rose was selected as the Coach of the Year. Senior Micha Hancock earned first team All-America honors, while senior Nia Grant earned second team laurels.
The annual Volleyball Magazine All-Americans list is voted on by coaches and representatives of the media and then divided into three all-star teams.
Hancock capped off a stellar four-year career at Penn State with AVCA DI National Player of the Year honors. As just the fourth Nittany Lion in program history to earn the prestigious honor, her 2014 accolades include a unanimous selection to the All-Big Ten team as well as AVCA All-Northeast Region honors. She also picked up five conference Setter of the Week awards, while earning her second career AVCA DI National Player of the Week award (9/30).
Hancock rewrote several record books during the 2014 regular season with her outstanding performances from the endline. She closed out her final campaign in the Blue and White as the national leader in aces per set, while also ranking atop both the Big Ten and Penn State record books in aces. In addition to her standout serving, she directed the Nittany Lion offense to a national-best .342 hitting percentage.
Grant also completed her career at Penn State this season with her second career AVCA honor, having garnered honorable mention distinction in 2013. She earned her first career Big Ten postseason accolade with a unanimous selection to the All-Big Ten team this year, while also picking up her second consecutive AVCA All-Northeast Region honor in 2014. Having led the conference and the nation in hitting percentage for most of the season, her team-high .431 hitting efficiency concluded the year ranked first in the conference and fourth nationally.
Frantti is the third Nittany Lion in program history to earn Volleyball Magazine Freshman of the Year honors and the first since Deja McClendon (2010). Frantti was honored as the AVCA DI National Freshman of the Year shortly after earning AVCA All-Northeast region honors as well as the AVCA All-Northeast Region Freshman of the Year award. She also picked up conference postseason recognition on two different teams, earning All-Big Ten honorable mention honors as well as a unanimous spot of the All-Freshman team. A three-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week, Frantti highlighted the NCAA national semifinal match with 16 kills on .375 hitting in the Nittany Lions' four-set victory against top-ranked Stanford.
In his 36th year at the helm of the program, Rose guided Penn State to its seventh NCAA national title in program history and sixth in the last eight years. During his tenure, Rose has collected wins at a staggering pace. Never having posted fewer than 22 wins in a season, he concluded the 2014 season as the NCAA leader in career winning percentage, having won more than 86 percent of the matches he's coached at Penn State. Standing alone atop the all-time wins list with 1,161 career victories, he is one of only two active DI women's volleyball head coach to reach the 1,000 career wins plateau.
The Nittany Lions capped off a historic 2014 season with a sweeping 3-0 victory against BYU for the national championship crown. Having not lost an NCAA title match since 1998, the straight set victory was the third time that Penn State swept its national final opponent. The win also marked the first time that PSU has won back-to-back titles since 2009-10, when Penn State completed the second half of its historic string of four straight from 2007-10. With a total of seven NCAA championships, the Nittany Lions now have more national championship than any other women's volleyball program in history.