Multiple volleyball Tigers awarded AVCA All-Region honors
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Ahead of the program's first Sweet 16 appearance since 2017, five members of the Mizzou volleyball team were received 2024 AVCA All-Region honors, on Tuesday.
Graduate outside hitter Mychael Vernon was tabbed as the AVCA Central Region Player of the Year, while head coach Dawn Sullivan was named the AVCA Central Region Coach of the Year. In addition to those couple honors, senior rightside hitter Jordan Iliff, junior libero Maya Sands and redshirt sophomore setter Marina Crownover were listed on the All-Region team.
The four All-Region honors are the most Mizzou has seen since 2016, when Melanie Crow, Carly Kahn, Kira Larson and Alyssa Munlyn were named to the AVCA Southeast All-Region team.
Vernon's one season as a Tiger has been a memorable one, as she is the first Mizzou player to ever win the AVCA Central Region Player of the Year Award.
The New York native leads the SEC with 493 kills on the season, averaging about four per set. She is third in the league for points, as well, with 549 on the season. But, she also stacks up nationally. In all of the NCAA, Vernon ranks 23rd for total kills and 33rd for total points, finishing with double-digit kills in all but two matches in the 2024 season and registering 13 double-doubles.
She also earned the SEC Newcomer of the Year award, after a standout run in conference action.
Just in postseason action, alone, Vernon has already posted back-to-back 20-kill matches against Texas State and SMU in the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament.
She couldn't have put up those stats without her teammates, though.
Iliff earned her second-straight All-Region honors, on Tuesday. The St. Louis native ranks sixth in the Southeastern Conference for points with 524 and 10th for kills with 429, as she averages about four points and nearly four kills per set.
In addition to her other accolades, Iliff also set the new Mizzou single-season record for aces, with 66, which leads the SEC and ranks seventh in the NCAA. She's already surpassed 1,000 career kills (ranking 10th all-time in Mizzou history), 500 career digs, 100 career aces and 100 career matches.
Crownover set up a lot of those kills for Vernon and Iliff, in 2024, as she was named to her first-ever AVCA All-Region team.
The redshirt sophomore ranks third in the SEC with nearly 11 assists per set and third in the entire league with 1,102 assists. In the NCAA, Crownover is 15th in assists per set.
The Texas native has also already surpassed some big career landmarks, including 1,000 career assists, as she's totaled 16 40-plus assist matches in 2024. Crownover dished 22 or more assists in each of Mizzou's last 15 matches.
Sands made her second-straight All-Region team, on Tuesday.
The Illinois-native registered double-digit digs in all but one match in 2024, as she leads the SEC with about four digs per set and in second in the league with 522 total digs, which ranks sixth in MU history.
The team was, of course, all assembled by the Central Region Coach of the Year.
In just her second season at the helm, Coach Sullivan has led the Tigers to the program's second-straight NCAA Tournament appearance and first Sweet 16 since 2017 with a 22-8 overall record. MU earned the seventh seed in the Tournament and is also ranked in the Top-25.
Overall, Sullivan is the third AVCA Region Coach of the Year in MU history, after Wayne Kreklow picked up the honors in 2013 and 2016.
Up next - Mizzou will face Kentucky in the Sweet 16 on Thursday, Dec. 12. First serve is set for 12 p.m.
