With under a month left before the 2017 volleyball season begins, VolleyMob is taking a look at some of the collegiate recruiting classes you may have missed and those who stand to make an impact on teams in and out of the final AVCA Top 25.
Oregon completes the first 21:
- Stanford
- Texas
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- Wisconsin
- UCLA
- Washington
- BYU
- Creighton
- Penn State
- North Carolina
- Kansas
- Florida State
- Michigan
- Florida
- Missouri
- Hawai’i
- Ohio State
- Michigan State
- Arizona
- Oregon
The Oregon Ducks took a successful 21-10 season (13-7 Pac-12) to a second round NCAA Tournament appearance and a final ranking of 21 in the last AVCA Coaches Poll. As they look to build off of 2016 and look ahead to 2017, they know they will have plenty back as last year’s Oregon team graduated just two seniors. Of the 15 players on the roster, four were freshmen and five were sophomores. They now own a plethora of experience, as eight of the team’s 14 players in 2017 are upperclasswomen, with five others at sophomore or redshirt sophomore classification. That means there wasn’t a ton of room for Oregon to add to its roster, as the Ducks only have garnered one addition for 2017.
The lone newcomer to Oregon is Kyra Hanawahine, a 5’2″ defensive specialist/libero from Honolulu, Hawaii. She was a three-year letterwinner at Kamehameha High School as every year on varsity she won the Hawaii state championship. She was also named first-team all-state as a junior and senior.
Hanawahine is now one of three defensive specialists/liberos on the team. Regardless of who plays libero for Oregon in 2017, they will have the tall task of replacing Amanda Benson, a 2016 AVCA All-America Honorable Mention at the position in 2016. She has since graduated and is now with USA Volleyball, leaving a big hole in the back row for the Ducks; one they will look to fill with one of two returnees or with Hanawahine.
Besides Benson, the Ducks only lose one other senior from the roster. Lindsey Vander Weide is back after receiving AVCA Third-Team All-America honors in 2016. Oregon also brings back Taylor Agost, Lauren Page, Jolie Rasmussen and Ronika Stone, who were all on the Pac-12 Honorable Mention squad in 2016.
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