Cal Poly beach volleyball’s No. 1 pairing of senior Crissy Jones and sophomore Tia Miric were named Pairs Team of the Year, head coach Todd Rogers was named Coach of the Year and a total of five Mustang pairs received All-Conference honors, the Big West announced Monday.
Jones and Miric, along with the No. 2 pairing of junior Emily Sonny and sophomore Macy Gordon garnered First-Team All-Conference nods. The No. 3 pairing of senior Kat Wright and freshman Jayelin Lombard, as well as the No. 5 pairing of junior Brayden Gruenewald took home Second-Team All-Conference honors. The Mustangs’ No. 4 pairing of senior Samantha Manley and freshman Vanessa Roscoe earned Honorable Mention All-Conference honors.
The five Cal Poly pairs on the All-Conference list was tied for the most of any school. Hawai’i also had five pairs earn All-Conference honors. This was also the most amount of pairs Cal Poly has ever had make the All-Conference list.
Jones and Miric went 22-8 this season from the top spot in the lineup on their way to becoming the first Mustangs to earn Pairs Team of the Year. The 22 wins were also the most wins by any Cal Poly pair this season. That included going 4-0, all in sweeps, at the Big West Tournament to help the Mustangs win their first Big West title. That 4-0 run included sweeping Hawai’i’s top pair twice as well as beating Long Beach State’s top pair. They were also the only Cal Poly pair to earn AVCA Pair of the Week honors, which they took home following the Big West Tournament. They were ranked by collegebeachvb.com as the fifth-best pair in the country. This is the second year in a row Miric has earned First-Team All-Conference honors. For Jones, a graduate transfer from Washington, this was her first Big West First Team selection. As a Huskie, she earned All-Conference honors in beach volleyball twice.
For fourth-year head coach Todd Rogers, this is his first Big West Coach of the Year award. Rogers helped guide the Mustangs to a 25-12 record, the program’s first Big West Tournament championship, and the first NCAA Tournament. He also piloted Cal Poly to a top-10 national ranking every week in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.
Sonny and Gordon were named First-Team All-Conference after going 16-4 this season from the No. 2 position. That record was the best by percentage of any Cal Poly pair that played at least 10 matches together. They were also ranked as the eighth-best No. 2 pair in the country by collegebeachvb.com. This is the second year in a row Sonny has been named First-Team All-Conference and the third time in her career she has made an all-conference team. For Gordon, this is the second time she has made and all-conference team after she earned Honorable Mention honors last season.
The No. 3 pairing of Wright and Lombard earned Second-Team All-Conference honors after going 19-14 this season. They were also only one of two pairs on the team that played together both in the first weekend and the final weekend of the season. This is the first All-Conference honor for both Wright and Lombard.
Gruenewald and Roscoe went 16-12 this season from primarily the No. 5 spot to earn Second-Team All-Conference honors. They were the only Cal Poly pair to play at least one match from all five spots in the lineup. They also went 4-0 at the Big West Tournament. That included the biggest win by any Mustang pair in the championship match against Hawai’i. With the match tied 2-2, Gruenewald and Roscoe clinched the title for Cal Poly after a 21-19 win in the third set. This is the first Big West All-Conference selection for both players.
Manley and Peranich earned Honorable Mention All-Conference honors after going 10-10 from the No. 4 spot after becoming a pair midway through the season. That included going 3-1 in the Big West Tournament to help the Mustangs win the title. This is the second All-Conference honor for Manley in her career after she earned First-Team All-Conference honors last season.
2019 was a historic season for the Cal Poly beach volleyball team. The Mustangs won their first Big West Tournament championship, made their first NCAA Tournament, posted a second season in a row with 25+ victories which is also just the second time in program history that has been done, and had 12 wins this season over teams ranked in the AVCA Top 20, the most in a single season in program history.
–Provided by Cal Poly
