Pac-12 | Washington’s Melanie Wade is conference defensive Player of the Week

Freshman middle blocker cited for big weekend against Stanford & Cal

Stanford’s Wopat wins offense award; USC’s Bricio again earns freshman award

Washington’s Melanie Wade—who grew up in Palo Alto and said it was “really cool” and “an honor” to get the start against Stanford and Cal this weekend—has been named Pac-12 Conference Defensive Player of the Week.

Washington's Melanie Wade (5) joins Krista Vansant in a bock against Stanford's Morgan Boukather
-Volleyblog Seattle photo by Leslie Hamann

In its citation, the conference wrote:

Freshman middle blocker Melanie Wade (Palo Alto, Calif.) helped UW hold Stanford for just .110 on offense. The Huskies out-hit the Cardinal and scored 19 more total points than Stanford, but suffered a loss in five sets. Wade had six blocks and four digs on the match. Against the Bears, Wade led all Huskies with a career-best 12.5 points as she set career-highs in nearly all categories. She had six kills on 11 attempts for a .545 attack percentage. She served up her first three aces of her career and added a match- and career-high seven blocks in the 3-0 win over California.

Wade’s fellow middle blocker, senior Amanda Gil, won the defensive honor on October 1. Teammate Krista Vansant won the offensive honor on both September 3 and October 1.

The Freshman of the Week award went to USC’s Samantha Bricio; the fourth time she’s been honored this season. Bricio tends to put up her best numbers against teams in the lower half of the conference; she had 11 aces this weekend against Utah and Colorado. Her most recent prior award was for her performance against Arizona and Arizona State. Opponents for her previous citations were against nonconference opponents including North Dakota, Texas A&M, Texas State, Northern Iowa, Boston College and Mississippi.

Stanford’s Carly Wopat was honored as Offensive Player of the Week, after leading Stanford to narrow 5-set victories against both Washington and Washington State. For the weekend, Wopat had 31 kills and just 4 errors (.421). By comparison, Washington’s Kaleigh Nelson had 26 kills and 4 errors (.458), playing two fewer sets than Wopat. And Vansant led all Pac-12 players this weekend with 34 total kills.

2012 Pac-12 Women's Volleyball Players of the Week

	Offensive	Defensive	Freshman
Aug. 27	Alaina Bergsma, ORE	Arica Nassar, OSU	Samantha Bricio, USC
Sept. 3	Krista Vansant, WASH	Karsta Lowe, UCLA	Samantha Bricio, USC
Sept. 10	Camille Saxton, OSU	Beck Defoe, OSU	Madi Bugg, STAN
Sept. 17	Arica Nassar, OSU	Marcelina Glab, WSU	Macey Gardner, ASU
Sept. 24	Lauren Plum, ORE	Jordan Burgess, STAN	Jordan Burgess, STAN
Oct. 1	Krista Vansant, WASH	Amanda Gil, WASH	Macey Gardner, ASU
Oct. 8	Samantha Bricio, USC	Natalie Hagglund, USC	Samantha Bricio, USC
Oct. 15	Alaina Bergsma, ORE	Kyle Gilbert, STAN	Inky Ajanaku, STAN
Oct. 22	Carly Wopat, STAN	Melanie Wade, WASH	Samantha Bricio, USC

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WRITTEN BY Jack Hamann | PHOTOS BY Leslie Hamann

www.nolittlethings.com

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