Click Here For PDF Release
Somerset, NJ -- Fresh off its finest regular season in 15 years, Saint Francis U was duly rewarded in the year-end NEC women’s volleyball award balloting.
A force to be reckoned with on its way to earning the program’s first NEC Tournament berth since 2014, the Red Flash won three of the five major year-end awards as voted by the league’s head coaches. Senior outside hitter
Madi Tyus (Plano, TX/Bishop Lynch) claimed the NEC Player of the Year title, a first for the Flash since the 1999 season. Teammate
Maggie Hogan (Northern Cambria, PA/Northern Cambria), a freshman outside hitter, joined Tyus on the major award winner list as the NEC Co-Rookie of the Year recipient.
Sara McMullen stood alongside her two student-athletes on the awards podium after being named NEC Coach of the Year by her peers.
Sacred Heart’s
Sarah Ciszek (San Juan Capistrano, CA/Santa Margarita Catholic) made history by adding a fourth NEC Setter of the Year award to her resume. The senior was previously named NEC Rookie of the Year (2018) and 2020-21 NEC Player of the Year.
Anastasia Scott (Jacksonville, FL/ The Bolles School) collected her second major award, as the senior libero from LIU repeated as the NEC Defensive Player of the Year.
St. Francis Brooklyn was represented on the major award winners list by freshman libero
Alasha Colon (Carolina, Puerto Rico/Academia Presbiteriana Villa Carolina). Colon was voted the NEC Co-Rookie of the Year alongside Hogan.
A dominant offensive force, Tyus leads the NEC in kills and ranks 24th nationally, averaging 4.31 per set heading into the postseason. The senior previously paced the NEC in kills back in 2019 and has ranked in the top three in the category in each of her three seasons. She has reached double digits in kills in 24-of-26 matches on the year, and cracked the 20-kill mark on seven occasions. Tyus has also contributed defensively with 2.64 digs and 0.51 blocks per set. The Plano, TX native has been named NEC Player of the Week three times this season. Tyus also earned herself a spot on the All-NEC first team after previously being voted to the All-NEC second team in 2018. The Red Flash standout has recorded 1,093 kills in her four-year career, which ranks fifth in program history. She is the third SFU student-athlete to be named NEC Player of the Year, joining Jodi Cruse (1997) and Megan Taliaferro (1999) on the list.
No stranger to the awards circle, Ciszek joined LIU all-time great Vera Djuric as the lone four-time NEC Setter of the Year winners in league history. She earned a league-best five NEC Player of the Week titles and a NEC Defensive Player of the Week honor this season. The senior from San Juan Capistrano, CA dominated the NEC leaderboards offensively, ranking in the top-10 in three statistical categories. The all-around force leads the conference in hitting percentage (.360), and is second in assists (8.88 per set) and eighth in service aces (0.29 per set). Throw in 2.20 kills, 2.66 digs and 0.58 blocks per set and it’s easy to see why Sacred Heart has built its program around her unique skill set in recent years. Ciszek is second in the NCAA with five triple-doubles, beating her previous season record of four. The 2018 NEC Rookie of the Year, 2019 NEC Tournament MVP and 2020-21 NEC Player of the Year has now made four appearances on the All-NEC first team and enters the postseason with 3,408 career assists as she seeks her second conference crown for the second-seeded Pios.
Scott put together another award winning defensive season for LIU, pacing the NEC by a wide margin with 5.38 digs per set heading into the postseason. The libero from Jacksonville, FL currently ranks ninth in the NCAA in digs, eight places higher than she ranked following her junior campaign. Scott has recorded 293 digs on the year, including an NEC single-season match-high 34 in a match against Bryant on October 2. Scott, who earned NEC Defensive Player of the Week a conference-high six times, was also tabbed to the All-NEC first team for the second straight year to help lead the Sharks to the NEC playoffs for the 19th consecutive season. This is her second time earning the NEC Defensive Player of the Year honor, placing her alongside four-time winner Adriana Vinas-Joy (2012-15), Svetlana Simic (2007) and Natalia Rivera (2018) as LIU student-athletes who have won the (formerly titled Libero of the Year) award.
Hogan recorded NEC Rookie of the Week honors three times this season for the Red Flash. The Northern Cambria, PA product is ranked sixth in the NEC in service aces, and also contributes 2.37 kills and 2.27 digs per set. She has posted five double-doubles on the year. Hogan became the first SFU player bestowed with NEC Rookie of the Year plaudits since Rebecca Hartman in 2000, and third overall, joining Erin Shaw, who was the inaugural recipient back in 1993.
A two-time NEC Rookie of the Week, Colon is ranked second in the league in digs, averaging 4.76 per set. The freshman played in all 29 matches for the Terriers this season and hit double-digits in digs 27 times, 20+ kills on 11 occasions and recorded a season-high 33 digs - the second-highest single-match total in the conference this fall - in a win over CCSU on October 30. Colon made history as the first NEC Rookie of the Year to hail from SFBK and also earned distinction as the only true freshman to land an All-Conference spot, taking home second team honors.
McMullen earned her first NEC Coach of the Year accolade after leading the Red Flash to the NEC Tournament for the first time in seven years. Under McMullen, SFU finished the year with a 9-5 conference record, the best mark for the program since going 7-1 back in 2006. It also marked a six-game improvement from 2019, the last season of competition for the Red Flash. This season in conference play, SFU led the league in assists (13.69/set) and kills (14.92/set), and ranked second in hitting percentage (.256). McMullen and the fourth-seeded Red Flash will be looking to capture their first-ever NEC Tournament title this weekend.
AWARD WINNER HIGHLIGHTS
In capturing the program’s second NEC regular season title, Bryant features three NEC all-stars. Bulldog kills leader
Riley James (Pocasset, MA/Barnstable) was named to the first team. Her 2.68 kills per set ranks ninth in the league. James, a junior, has posted a total of 644 kills in her time with the Bulldogs as she approaches the career top-10 at the school. Junior setter
Mia Cergol (East Northport, NY/Elwood-John H. Glenn) ranks third in the conference with 8.68 assists per set and fourth with 0.31 service aces per set. Cergol has accumulated 964 assists heading into the postseason, the fifth-highest total in school annals. Senior
Caroline Kennedy (San Juan Capistrano, CA/JSerra Catholic) joined Cergol on the second team, her second such appearance. The opposite hitter averages 2.66 kills per set to rank second on the team.
Ciszek found company on the first team with SHU graduate transfer
Olivia Fairchild (Phoenix, AZ/Desert Vista (Fordham). The opposite hitter is ranked third in the league in hitting percentage (.292) and tenth in kills, averaging 2.66 per set. Junior middle blocker
Reghan Palanchi (Succasunna, NJ/Roxbury) found her way onto the All-NEC second team after ranking fourth in hitting percentage (.290). A defensive stalwart, she ranks third on the circuit with 0.95 blocks per set.
For the 19th consecutive season, LIU has landed at least one first team All-NEC performer. In addition to Scott, graduate student outside hitter
Jovana Stekovic (Gornji Milanovac, Serbia/Gimnazija Takovski Ustanak) repeated as a first team honoree. Stekovic ranks third in the league in kills, posting 3.96 per set, and also sits among leaders in aces (0.33/set) and digs (2.90/set). Nova tied for the NEC single-season match-high with 26 kills against FDU on September 24. LIU junior outside hitter
Karolina Nova (Pribham, Czech Republic/Gymnazium Pripotocni) was named to the second team, marking her third All-NEC appearance. A first teamer in 2020-21 and a second team honoree in 2019, Nova is first in the NEC in service aces with 0.39 a set and ranks fifth in kills with 3.24 per set.
Saint Francis U’s Tyus was joined on the first team by
Nicole Adams (Clifton Park, NY/Shenendehowa East). The senior right side hitter is second in the league in kills - behind Tyus - averaging 4.24 per set. She also ranks ninth in the NEC in hitting percentage (.261). The Clifton Park, NY product falls closely behind Tyus on the NCAA leaderboard for kills at 29th. Their teammate, senior setter
Kimmy Sweeney (Broadview Heights, OH/Beaumont School), landed herself a spot on the second team. Sweeney leads the conference with 10.24 assists per set. She twice posted a season-high of 54 assists, and compiled three of the top-five highest assist totals in the conference on the year.
Central Connecticut’s
Nyjha Marcelin (Glendale, AZ/Centennial) was named to the All-NEC second team. The redshirt freshman is ranked fourth in the conference in kills averaging 3.22 per set. The Arizona native also averaged 0.65 blocks per set.
About The Northeast Conference
Now in its 41st season, the Northeast Conference is an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic association consisting of 10 institutions of higher learning located throughout seven states. Media coverage of the NEC extends to a number of the largest markets in the United States - New York (#1), Boston (#9), Baltimore (#26), Hartford/New Haven (#33) and Providence (#53). Founded in 1981 as the basketball-only ECAC Metro Conference, the NEC has grown to sponsor 24 championship sports for men and women and now enjoys automatic access to 16 different NCAA Championships. NEC member institutions include Bryant, Central Connecticut, Fairleigh Dickinson, LIU, Merrimack, Mount St. Mary’s, Sacred Heart, St. Francis Brooklyn, Saint Francis U and Wagner. For more information on the NEC, visit the league’s official website (www.northeastconference.org) and digital network (www.necfrontrow.com), or follow the league on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, all @NECsports.
2021 Northeast Conference Women's Volleyball Award Winners
Player of the Year
Madi Tyus Saint Francis U OH Sr. Plano, TX/Bishop Lynch
Setter of the Year
Sarah Ciszek Sacred Heart S Sr. San Juan Capistrano, CA/Santa Margarita Catholic
Defensive Player of the Year
Anastasia Scott LIU L Sr. Jacksonville, FL/The Bolles School
Co-Rookies of the Year
Alasha Colon St. Francis Brooklyn L Fr. Carolina, Puerto Rico/Academia Presbiteriana Villa Carolina
Maggie Hogan Saint Francis U OH Fr. Northern Cambria, PA/Northern Cambria
Coach of the Year
Sara McMullen Saint Francis U 6th Season
2021 Northeast Conference Women's Volleyball First Team All-Conference
Name School Pos Yr Hometown/High School (Previous School)