Hunter, Wilkinson, Witt, Busboom Kelly Earn Division I Honors

Kelly Hunter – photo courtesy University of Nebraska 

Three players and one coach who were former high school standouts in Nebraska were honored today by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

Kelly Hunter of Papillion-LaVista South and the senior setter for Nebraska was named to the All-North Region Team and was also named the North Region Player of the Year.

Hunter has set NU to an NCAA title and two Big Ten titles over the last three seasons and was voted the best player in the region by the head coaches. After missing the first two matches of the 2017 season with an injury, Hunter returned to lead the Huskers to 28 wins in the last 30 matches with 10.79 assists and 2.65 digs per set.

Hunter has a team-high 13 double-doubles this season and has climbed to third in career assists at NU with 3,960. An AVCA second-team All-American in 2016, Hunter added two Big Ten Setter of the Week awards this season to bring her career total to eight. A three-year team captain, Hunter is the Huskers’ first-ever Big Ten Setter of the Year since the award was established in 2012. She was also a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection and a Senior CLASS Award candidate earlier this season. Hunter achieved her third career all-region selection.

Lincoln Southwest graduate Marysa Wilkinson, a senior OH/MH/OPP, and Omaha Marian graduate Brittany Witt, a sophomore libero, were each named NCAA Division I First Team All-East Region. Dani Busboom Kelly, a former standout player at Freeman and former assistant coach at Nebraska, was named the East Region Coach of the Year for her work in her first season as head coach at Louisville.

Wilkinson ranked third in the BIG EAST in hitting percentage (.369). She was also seventh in the league with 0.94 blocks per set, 12th with 3.42 points per set and 14th with 2.88 kills per set. Wilkinson was named a First Team All-BIG EAST pick in 2017 after being a Second Team choice in 2016. She closed her career ranked in the top-10 in Creighton history in matches played, matches started, sets played, wins played in, kills, blocks and points.

Witt is one of two sophomores on the East Region First Team. Witt took home BIG EAST Libero of the Year honors in 2017, in addition to First Team All-BIG EAST plaudits, after she averaged 4.24 digs per set to rank second in the league.  Witt was also 12th in the conference in service aces per set (0.25). Witt was named East Region Freshman of the Year in 2016 by the AVCA.

Busboom Kelly led the Louisville Cardinals to the 2017 ACC Championship after being picked eighth in the preseason coaches poll. Her ACC Co-Champion squad earned the conference’s NCAA automatic qualification and won 11 ACC matches in a row to finish out the regular season and were the only conference team undefeated in ACC home matches at 10-0.  It was the Cardinals’ 28th 20+ win season as they closed out the 2017 campaign with a 24-7 mark and went 18-2 in the ACC. Louisville had the fifth-best RPI improvement from 2016 to 2017 in the nation (+131).