FAIRBANKS – The Alaska Nanooks volleyball team received two awards last week.
 
Rilee White earned Academic All-District Team honors, selected by College Sports Communicators, and Jessa Long was named an AVCA All-Region Honorable Mention selection. "We are excited to see our athletes rewarded for their hard work on the court and in the classroom. Congrats to both Rilee and Jessa on all their achievements. It is a great reflection of the hard work that both them and their teammates put in on a daily basis."
 
White was one of 18 GNAC volleyball honorees on the Academic All-District Team. UAA and WWU led the conference with four selections each. Nominees must be of sophomore standing or greater, be a starter or important reserve on their team with a minimum GPA or greater and must have participated in at least 50% of their team's matches. 
 
White was first named to the GNAC All-Academic team and was one of nine in the GNAC posting a 4.00 GPA. She was then named to the All-District Team following a season that saw her finish second on the team with 282 kills (2.45/set), a .161 hit percentage, 20 assists, 68 service aces (0.59/set), 245 digs (2.13/set) and 51 total blocks (4/47 BS/BA). All of this alongside her 4.00 GPA while studying Biological Sciences. 
 
Long, the GNAC Defensive Player of the Year and GNAC First Team All-Conference Libero was named an Honorable Mention selection for the AVCA All-Region Team. She joined the Nanooks this past offseason after spending three years as the libero for Florida A&M in the NCAA Division I Southwestern Athletic Conference. 

On the season, Long led the conference and ranks 56^th in Division II with 4.72 digs per set while also leading the GNAC and ranking 36th in the division with 543 total digs. On Sept. 24, 2022 against Western Washington in Fairbanks, Long tallied 34 digs, tying the fourth-most in Nanook single-game history. Her historic run did not end there. She then posted 32 on Nov. 10, 2022 at Saint Martin's in a five-set win over the Saints, tying the ninth-most in a single-game by a Nanook and solidifying herself in the Alaska Nanooks volleyball program history book by breaking the single-season total digs record. 
 
She ended the season with 543 digs, shattering the former record of 506, set by Jenna Hickel in the 2017 season.  This season, Long posted nine games with 20+ digs, including three with 30+. Only one time did she not reach 10+ digs in a single-game, going for 10+ in 29 of 30 matches. 
 
Long was the first Nanook since AveRee Reynolds (2019 GNAC Newcomer of the Year) to win an individual conference award and becomes the first Nanooks volleyball player to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award since its inception in 2012.
 
She also becomes the first Nanook named to the AVCA All-Region Team since Sam Harthun, who was a two-time Honorable Mention selection in 2013 and 2015. 
 
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks volleyball team, follow @NanooksVB on Instagram or Twitter, or like the Alaska Nanooks Volleyball team page on Facebook.