BYU sophomore middle blocker Miki Jauhiainen has been named the 2018 Elite 90 Award winner for NCAA DI/DII men’s volleyball. Jaunainen carries a perfect 4.0 GPA, majoring in computer science.
The honor is given annually to the athlete at each of the NCAA’s 90 sponsored championship final sites who has the highest GPA. Ties are broken by the number of credit hours completed, and to be considered, athletes must be sophomores or above who have competed in their sport for at least two years with their school. They must be an active member of the team, traveling and a designated member of the squad at the championship.
Jauhainen is the 3rd BYU winner of the award since it was established as the Elite 88 Award in the 2010-2011 season (the 88 and 90 referring to the number of NCAA championships awarded in any given year, which has grown by 2 in the last decade). Phil Fuchs won the award in the 2012-2013 season, and Michael Hatch won it in the 2015-2016 season.
Jauhainen has played in 83 sets this year for BYU, averaging .72 killsset and .92 block/set. He ranks 4th on the team in both blocks/set and hitting percentage (.393) this season.
BYU will play in the NCAA men’s national semi-final on Thursday evening in Los Angeles against the host team UCLA. See a full preview of that game here.
All Elite 90 Award Winners in Men’s Volleyball:
| Name | School | Class | GPA | Major | Year |
| Ryan Wolf | Penn State | Jr. | 3.8208 | Accounting | 2010-11 |
| Ian Karbiener | Lewis | Jr. | 3.907 | Business Administration | 2011-12 |
| Phil Fuchs | BYU | So. | 3.87 | Business Management | 2012-13 |
| Matt Aiello | Stanford | Jr. | 3.849 | English | 2013-14 |
| Eric Fitterer | Lewis | Sr. | 3.86 | Business Administration | 2014-15 |
| Michael Hatch | BYU | Sr. | 4 | Business | 2015-2016 |
| Christy Blough | Ohio State | Sr. | 3.978 | Biomedical Engineering | 2016-17 |
| Miki Jauhiainen | BYU | So. | 4 | Computer Science | 2017-2018 |
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