HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College volleyball team has once again earned the American Volleyball Coaches' Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award for the 2019-20 academic year. The Fords were one of a record-breaking 1,313 programs to garner the academic award on Monday afternoon. That total includes men's and women's programs from the three NCAA divisions, the NAIA, USCAA, two-year colleges, and high schools. In total, the top 49 percent of women's squads were honored in NCAA Division III.
The award, which was initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. The Centennial Conference continued to stand out as one of the top academic conferences in the country as Haverford was one of nine conference institutions to be recognized with the plaudit.
Previously, volleyball placed eight members of the 2019 squad on the Centennial Conference's fall honor roll, with Christine Anderson, Sara Hunsberger, Dina Kosyagin, Sara Matsumura, Sydney Miller, Claire Nicholas, Riley Outen, and Isabel Schwam earning that award. Matsumura was subsequently named to the Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area team.
In 2019, the volleyball team finished 22-9 and marked its return to the postseason for the 17th time in the last 20 seasons. Haverford's 22 wins were the most for the program in a single season since the 2014 squad also notched 22 victories.