NEW ORLEANS — Xavier University of Louisiana
has produced another first for its volleyball program with the selection
of
Pat Kendrick as the 2018 American Volleyball Coaches Association NAIA All-Southeast
Region Coach of the Year.
The AVCA cited three XULA student-athletes, all sophomores,
in the region.
Kayla Black was voted to the first team, and
Eva Le Guillou and
Vivica Price-Spraggins received honorable mention.
The Gold Nuggets were 26-7 this season and 14-0 in
the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. For the eighth consecutive year they
won GCAC regular-season and tournament championships and qualified automatically
for the NAIA National Championship tournament.
Kendrick, in her second season at XULA, led
the Nuggets to their first-ever victory against a ranked NAIA opponent
when they defeated No. 22 Indiana Wesleyan in four sets in August.
Her team set school season records with a .262 hitting percentage and
1.85 blocks per game.
All three honored sophomores set school season records.
Black, from Spring, Texas, and a graduate of St. Pius X High in Houston,
set marks with 407 kills, 3.84 kills per set and 23 matches of 10-or-more kills.
Le Guillou, from Velizy-Villacoublay, France, set records with 1,037 assists
and 9.78 assists per set. Price-Spraggins, from Chicago and a graduate of
Whitney Young Magnet High School, hit a school-record .400
and became the first-ever XULA player to reach 200 kills, 30 aces and 75 blocks in the same season.
Black is the fifth Gold Nugget and first sophomore to earn first-team all-region,
joining Kimberlee Rock (2004), Taylor Reuther (2013), Claudia Haywood (2015)
and
Juliana Tomasoni (2017).