Three volleyball players earned CoSIDA Academic All-American honors this past season, including Ohio State senior Christy Blough who was named to the men’s first team for the second consecutive year. Also making the list were beach volleyball seniors Kobi Pekich of Long Beach State and Nicolette Martin of USC, both on the women’s third team.
All three earned their honors in the At-large category, which features a total of sixteen different sports including swimming & diving, gymnastics and golf, along with women’s beach and men’s indoor volleyball.
Blough, who has led the Buckeyes to back-to-back national championships, was the lone athlete from Ohio State to earn first team honors. He led the team to consecutive NCAA final sweeps of BYU in 2016 and 2017.
Pekich was one of five third team honorees to achieve a 4.0 GPA. In 2016 she had the best individual record on her team and also had the most kills with 484, the second highest single-season total in school history. This season Long Beach State made their first NCAA tournament appearance, taking 7th.
Martin has been part of two NCAA Championship winning seasons, as USC rolled to the first two NCAA beach volleyball titles in 2016 and 2017. Along with her CoSIDA third team selection, she was the 2017 Pac-12 Beach Volleyball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a Pac-12 All-Academic first-team selection. She holds a 3.70 GPA in fine arts and graduated in May.
Check out the full list of CoSIDA Academic All-Americans here.
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