After having a tremendous senior season and helping her team to the national title, Inky Ajanaku has been nominated for an ESPY as Best Female College Athlete.
The ESPY’s will air live on Wednesday, July 12 at 8 PM from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Ajanaku was surrounded by a slew of youth in her final season with the Cardinals. She was one of only two seniors on the crew (along with backup setter Kelsey Humphreys), using her experience to guide her young teammates to the top prize for a collegiate athlete, a national title. Stanford was ranked sixth in the tournament, being a good team, but not one that had the recognition of a Minnesota, Wisconsin or Nebraska in the Big Ten in 2016. Therefore, Stanford was considered the underdogs going into the title match against Big 12 opponent Texas.
The end to the Cardinals season was a 10-0 run to the championship title. Ajanaku posted 16 kills and eight blocks in the title match over the Longhorns.
In her final season, Ajanaku earned a number of awards including the Honda Award Winner, AVCA All-America First Team, MVP of the NCAA Tournament, AVCA All-Pacific North Region, All Pac-12 Conference, Senior CLASS Award First Team All-American.
Ajanaku posted 360 kills on the year on a .407 hitting percentage. Overall, in her career with Stanford, Ajanaku put down 1,370 kills with an impressive .413 hitting percentage. While also effective on offense, Ajanaku was a dominant middle blocker for the Cardinals, posting 627 blocks in her career with 74 of them being solo blocks.
Recently, Ajanaku signed her first professional volleyball contract with Volero Zurich, one of the top team in the club world. Volero Zurich finished tied for fifth in the 2017 European Champions League last season, earning them a wild card slot at the Club World Championships.
There were two seniors. Kelsey Humphreys was the other.
Thanks for the catch Kitan. Article has been updated.