Dec. 6, 2008
FAIRBANKS, AK - Senior middle blocker Korlyn Bolster was named the Alaska Nanook volleyball team's Most Valuable Player Saturday night at the program's end of season awards banquet held in the Wood Center. The Nanooks finished 15-10 overall and 9-7 in conference play, good for 4th place in Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
Bolster led the team offensively and defensively at the net with team highs in hitting percentage (.311), kills (292), kills per set (3.21), block solos (12), block assists (64), total blocks (76) and blocks per set (0.84). A four-year letterwinner for the Blue and Gold, Bolster had the best season of her career. She registered double-figure kills in 16 matches over the season hitting better than .400 in seven of them. Her season hitting percentage was third best in the GNAC.
She started to make her presence known early in the season, earning all-tournament team honors in the Montana State Billings Invitational. As the season progressed, things continued to get better for the Guerneville, California native: she earned GNAC Player of the week honors for the week of Oct. 6-12 with 28 kills in 56 attempts with only six errors for a .388 efficiency in the Nanooks' weekend sweep of Central WAshington and then-ranked No. 3 Western WAshington. She continued to shine, notching her career-high of 20 kills to go with eight blocks versus Alaska arch-rival UAA on Oct. 15. Following a stellar finish to her final season, Bolster earned GNAC First Team All-Conference honors.
Other awards dished out Saturday night were for the team's best offensive and best defensive players. Junior setter Alexa Sherman, who dished out 978 assists in quarterbacking the Nanooks' offense all season long, was named the Best Offensive Player, while her classmate Megan Thigpen took home the Best Defensive award. Thigpen led the team in the backcourt with 311 digs and 3.31 digs per set. Sherman and Thigpen both received honorable mention to the GNAC’s all-conference team.
Junior rightside hitter Jessica Hill was lauded with the P.H.D. (Pride, Hustle, Desire) Award for her dedication and hard work throughout the season. Rookies Marybeth Wikander and Simone Chavous were recognized as the program's unsung heroes for the 2008 season, in some cases coming in off the bench to spark comebacks and or key plays for points on the scoreboard and even starting at times throughout the season.
Picking up team academic honors were Thigpen, Sherman and Hill in addition to Miranda Trudeau, Melissa Refuerzo, Hannah Armstrong, Erica Gage, Jennifer Holland, and Brianne Wassmann.
Other awards included the coaches awards, which Coach Phelps gave to Holland and Coach Shoemaker gave to Gage, and the outstanding service awards that went to Megan Lewis (KTVF), Hugh Foster, and Mikayla Baggett.
In addition to handing out the hardware, the Nanooks recognized their three-member senior class (Bolster, Trudeau and setter Sedra Zlock) and reflected upon the many accomplishments that the program saw over the course of the season. Those included: beating No. 13 Central Missouri 3-1 on Aug. 30, No. 3 Western Washington 3-2 on Oct. 11, season sweeps of arch-rivals Alaska Anchorage (for the second time in as many years), and Seattle Pacific. The Nanooks' 3-0 sweep over the Falcons in Fairbanks on Sept. 18 was the first such victory against SPU in 17 years of history between the programs.
The Nanooks 15-10 season mark, which was one of the best in recent history, marked the sixth winning season with Shoemaker at the helm, and the fourth highest win percentage of his tenure (.600). The ninth-year bench boss has now led his program to 15 or more wins in four of his nine seasons. Alaska's 9-7 conference mark more than doubled their previous season's GNAC wins (4-14) and was the most wins since the 2004 season, when they went 10-8 in league play. Shoemaker also recorded his 100th win at the helm for Alaska on Oct. 4 at Saint Martin's.
