2021 D2CCA All-Midwest Region Honorees
It's becoming part of the annual tradition for the Hillsdale College volleyball team – leading the way in Divison II Conference Commissioners Association All-Region honors.
For the fourth-straight season, the Chargers led all Midwest Region teams in placing players on the D2CCA All-Region team, with three honorees in 2021, beating out Lewis, Michigan Tech and Ashland, who each had two.
Senior middle hitter Allyssa Van Wienen and senior setter Lindsey Mertz each earned first-team All-Region honors, while junior Karoline Shelton was named second-team All-Region.
Fourteen players are selected from among the three conferences that make up the Midwest Region to earn All-Region honors, divided into first and second teams. Players are nominated and voted on by sports information directors in the Midwest Region. As first team honorees, both Van Wienen and Mertz are now eligible for consideration for All-American honors.
On the same day, the American Volleyball Coaches Association also named their All-Region teams. Nominated and voted on by Midwest Region coaches, with 14 players earning first team honors and earning the right to be considered for All-American distinction. All three Chargers who earned D2CCA All-Region honors – Van Wienen, Mertz and Shelton – also made the AVCA All-Midwest Region team.
Van Wienen joins a small and elite group of players who have earned D2CCA First Team All-Region honors four times in their career with this accolade, while also receiving her second AVCA All-Region honor.
A 2019 All-American to both the AVCA and the D2CCA, as well as a 2020-21 CoSIDA Academic All-American, Van Wienen has continued to be an impact player for the Chargers in her final season, finishing second on the team in kills (301) and kills per set (3.17), leading the team and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in blocks per set (1.07) and solo blocks (30) and finishing with a team-high 392 points.
For her career, Van Wienen is also leaving an outsized mark on Hillsdale College, sitting third in program history with 1,404 career kills and fifth with 413 career blocks. She's the only player in Charger history to exceed 1,400 kills and 400 blocks in her career.
Mertz, meanwhile, is also a heavily decorated player over her career who's delivering for the Chargers as a senior. This is Mertz' third All-Region honor and second first team honor from the D2CCA, to go with AVCA Midwest Region Freshman of the Year honors earned in 2017. This season, Mertz has been one of the top setters in the country, with an 11.46 assists per set ratio that leads the G-MAC and ranks seventh in the nation.
The senior from Frankenmuth, Michigan already held the Chargers' single-season assists record for the 25-point rally scoring era, set in 2018, and this year Mertz became the program's career leader, surpassing 2009 graduate Stephanie Booms' mark of 4,640 in October. Mertz now has 5,020 assists for her career, and her 1,043 assists this season are the eighth-most for a single season in program history with the team's NCAA tourney run still to come.
Along with the two seniors, junior outside hitter Karoline Shelton also earned D2CCA second-team All-Region honors for the second consecutive time, and also earned All-Region honors from the AVCA for the first time.
The G-MAC Player of the Year in the Spring 2021 season, Shelton has continued to excel for Hillsdale, with a team-best 349 kills and 3.67 kills per set this season, good for fifth in the conference. A talented and versatile all-around player, Shelton also has contributed 428 digs and 4.51 digs per set this season for the Chargers, good for fifth in the conference, with only full-time liberos ahead of her.
With one season of eligibility still to come, Shelton's all-around excellence has put her in rarified air statistically at Hillsdale College. The junior surpassed both 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in her career this season, making her just the second Charger in school history to surpass both milestones after 2000 graduate Cassandra Cole. She now sits at 1,026 kills and 1,128 digs and will have the opportunity to climb Hillsdale's top 10 lists in both stats in 2022.
Hillsdale (27-4) won its fifth-straight G-MAC regular season and tournament titles earlier this month. The Chargers are the three-seed in the NCAA Midwest Regional beginning tomorrow and play sixth-seeded Grand Valley St. in a quarterfinal matchup at 2:30 p.m. in Big Rapids, Michigan, looking to kick off another deep tournament run after reaching the regional final round in their most recent NCAA tourney appearance in 2019.