Crossroads League Release | TU Honors Page
JACKSON, Mich. – The Crossroads League announced the 2022 volleyball all-league awards on Tuesday, and the No. 11 Taylor Trojans (30-5) boasted eight different athletes or coaches to win awards.
After securing both the regular-season and league-tournament championships, head coach, Erin Luthy, was named the Crossroads League Coach of the Year, while Gabby Reed picked up the league’s Assistant Coach-of-the-Year award. The last Trojan coach to win the league’s top coaching honor was Taylor hall-of-famer, Brittany Huyser Smith, who won the award in 2007, 2008, and 2010.
Luthy, who began her TU coaching career in 2016, has already achieved her highest single season win total in 2022, as the Trojans have 30 wins heading into the National Tournament this weekend. Luthy currently sits seven wins away from 150 for her career at Taylor.
Seniors, Ryan Czerniak and Kacy Bragg meanwhile were recipients of two of the league’s top player awards, with Czerniak garnering Taylor’s first Crossroads League Player-of-the-Year honor since Kelsey Pritchard did so in 2011.
Czerniak’s top honor came in the wake of a season in which she led the entire NAIA in hitting percentage, a mark which currently reads .400. Along the way, TU’s right-side hitter posted a single match hitting percentage of .500 or higher in 10 matches, separating herself as the only player in the nation to finish the regular season with a mark of .400 or better.
As the Trojans prepare for the National Championship Opening Rounds, Czerniak ranks second in the Crossroads League with 427 kills and sits third with 3.65 kills-per-set. TU’s fifth-year senior from Danville, Indiana, has achieved all this as a non-six-rotation player, highlighting the remarkable effectiveness of her presence on the court.
Czerniak has now received All-Crossroads League honors in each of her five seasons in a Taylor uniform.
While Czerniak was dubbed the league’s player of the year, Bragg was named the Crossroads League Setter of the Year for the second-consecutive season as she led the league with a mark of 10.97 assists-per-set.
The next closest player in the league averaged a whole 1.40 fewer assists-per-set than Bragg, as the native of Warsaw, Indiana, posted an impressive 17 40-plus-assists performances throughout 2022. Even more, TU’s setter has scored 50-or-more assists four times and a career-high 61 assists twice this season.
Bragg currently ranks second in the entire nation…
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