2020-21 G-MAC All-Conference Team
The Hillsdale College volleyball team entered the spring 2021 season with one of the best offensive attacks in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
And that was before junior outside hitter Karoline Shelton took the next step as a player.
Shelton's breakout campaign not only helped the Chargers repeat as G-MAC regular season champions with a perfect 11-0 record, it also earned the Shawnee, Kansas native the highest conference honor available for volleyball in the 2021 season.
This Thursday afternoon, Shelton was named the 2020-21 G-MAC Volleyball Player of the Year, marking the fourth consecutive season that a Hillsdale player has won the award.
She's one of eight Chargers to earn G-MAC honors for the spring 2021 campaign. Head Coach Chris Gravel won G-MAC Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive season, splitting the award this year with Ohio Dominican's Amy Bambanek.
Along with Shelton, senior Allyssa Van Wienen and freshmen Alli Wiese and Maizie Brown earned first-team All-G-MAC honors, while junior Maggie DePorre and sophomores Madeline Zenas and Megan Kolp each earned third-team honors.
Shelton served notice early in the season that she was going to be a force in 2021, totaling 12 or more kills in four of Hillsdale's first five matches, setting a new personal best with 21 kills in a four-set victory over G-MAC runner-up Walsh on the road, and becoming just the third player in program history to win an AVCA National Player of the Week Award.
A true jack of all trades for the Chargers, Shelton was not only an elite hitter, leading the team and finishing fourth in the G-MAC in kills per set (3.66) and points per set (4.23), but also finished in the top 10 in the G-MAC in aces per set and 11th in the conference in digs per set (3.51), the only player to come anywhere close to the top 10 in all four categories in G-MAC play this season.
As an attacking player, Shelton has had the power to rack up kills from the moment she stepped on the court as a freshman, as 339 kills in 2019-20 attest to. But in 2021 the junior refined her game and added precision to her power, drastically cutting down on attack errors and improving her hitting percentage by nearly 80 full points, to .299.
That additional accuracy helped transform Shelton from a dangerous but sometimes erratic hitter to arguably the most lethal attacking player in the conference and someone defenses have to account for at all times.
Perhaps Shelton's closest competitor for Player of the Year honors was her own teammate and the 2019 G-MAC POY winner, senior middle hitter Allyssa Van Wienen. The Grand Rapids, Michigan native had another excellent season to earn first-team All-G-MAC honors for the fourth consecutive year, finishing in the top 10 in the G-MAC in hitting percentage (3rd , .376), kills per set (8th, 3.16), blocks per set (2nd, 0.98) and points per set (5th, 4.05).
Along the way, Van Wienen became just the fourth player in Hillsdale program history to surpass 1,000 kills and 300 blocks in her career, joining fellow All-Americans Clara Leutheuser and Taryn Rudland, as well as Leslie Koppelman.
Along with all-conference regulars Van Wienen and Shelton, freshman libero Alli Wiese and freshman middle hitter Maizie Brown also made the All-G-MAC First Team in their first seasons, showing that the future is just as bright as the present for Charger volleyball.
The younger sister of Hillsdale graduate and All-American libero Taylor Wiese, Alli quickly seized the starting libero job and became one of the conference's best defensive players immediately, finishing second in the G-MAC in digs per set (5.44). She also became a lethal weapon for the Chargers at the service line, leading the conference in aces with 27, nine more than the next closest player.
Brown, meanwhile, made the most of every opportunity she got as a new face in a stacked front-row rotation and saw her role steadily grow as the season wore on. The freshman from Portage, Michigan stood out for her attacking accuracy (a .351 hitting percentage that was good for fourth in the G-MAC) and her defensive acumen (0.9 blocks per set, fifth-best in the conference) while finishing with 73 kills.
Three Chargers earned third-team All-Conference honors. Junior outside hitter Maggie DePorre earned her second All-G-MAC honor after finishing third on the team with 94 kills and 2.41 kills per set. The Troy, Michigan native also was an important part of the Charger defense at the net, averaging 0.67 blocks per set to finish just outside of the top 10 in the G-MAC in that statistic.
Sophomore setter Madeline Zenas brought home her first All-G-MAC honor this season. Thrust into a full-time starting role for the Chargers for the first time after an injury to senior Lindsey Mertz, Zenas helped keep Hillsdale's offensive attack humming, finishing fourth in the conference with 9.60 assists per set and helping the Chargers beat multiple ranked teams in the final two weeks to secure the conference crown.
Last, but not least, sophomore middle hitter Megan Kolp also earned her first All-G-MAC honor. Kolp finished with 74 kills and 1.8 kills per set for the Chargers, while also contributing 0.61 blocks per set. She was a critical part of arguably the best middle hitter rotation in the conference, teaming with Van Wienen and Brown to give the Chargers an elite player at the net no matter where in the rotation Hillsdale was.
Behind it all was Gravel, who earned his fourth G-MAC Coach of the Year honor and his eighth conference coach of the year honor overall while guiding the Chargers to a fourth-straight G-MAC regular season title and eighth regular season conference title in program history, all under his watch.
Now 518-260 overall in 25 years as Hillsdale's head coach, Gravel has built the Chargers into a program that is not just a G-MAC power, but a Midwest Regional power and, increasingly, a national power as well. This season, the Chargers earned the top ranking in the AVCA Division II poll for the first time in program history, and are currently in third entering this weekend's G-MAC Tournament Championship.
The Chargers host Cedarville in a G-MAC Tournament semifinal contest at 5 p.m. on Friday in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. If Hillsdale wins, the Chargers will play for their fourth-straight conference tournament title on Saturday at 5 p.m. as well.