Pitt's Olivia Babcock Wins Second-Consecutive AVCA Player Of the Year Award
While the Pitt volleyball team did not finish the season out in the way that they would have liked, as they lost in the National Semifinals for the fifth-straight year, the Panthers’ star player was still awarded with the sports’ highest achievement.
A day after Texas A&M stunned Pitt, the American Volleyball Coaches Association named Olivia Babcock as the Player of the Year for the second-consecutive season.
Babcock joined an elite list of Stanford’s Kathryn Plummer (18′, 19′) and Logan Tom (01′, 02′), Long Beach State’s Misti May (97′, 98′) and Tara Cross (88′, 89′) and Hawai’i’s Tonya Sanders-Williams (87′, 89′) as the only players to ever win the award multiple times.
“I’m just so honored that my team could trust me to be a leader two consecutive years,” Babcock said after winning the award. “I feel like its just a testament to my team, the confidence that I have on the court is a direct reflection of the confidence that they put in me.”
Babcock beat out fellow semifinalists Kentucky’s Eva Hudson, Nebraska’s Bergen Reilly and Wisconsin’s Mimi Colyer for the award this season.
Babcock was a force on the court all season long for Pitt as she finished her junior campaign with a team-high 664 kills, .334 hitting percentage, 261 digs, 126 blocks and 746.5 points. Additionally, she set career highs with 5.1 kills per set and 2.1 digs per set.
In addition to the AVCA Player of the Year award, Babcock earned the ACC Player of the Year, the AVCA Right Side Hitter of the Year and the AVCA East Region Player of the Year awards, in addition to First Team All-American and All-ACC honors.
Following the Panthers’ loss to the Aggies on Thursday, many people speculated that Babcock would entertain transfer portal talks due to losing in the national semifinals in each of her first three seasons at Pitt.
Babcock quickly shut those rumors down as she shared a post on her Instagram story hinting at her return to Pitt for her senior season.
“Thank you for all of the support this year Pitt fans,” Babcock wrote. “See you again next year.”
In Babcock’s return to Pitt next season, she will attempt to take the Panthers to their first ever National Championship and do something that no other women’s college volleyball player has done before which is to win the AVCA Player of the Year award three times.
