University of Minnesota Athletics
2016 Gopher Volleyball Year in Review
12/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Take a look back at the 2016 season as the Gophers advanced to their second-straight NCAA Final Four.
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• Golden Gophers advanced to the 2016 NCAA Final Four, which marked the second straight year they reached that mark and the fifth time in school history (2003, 2004, 2009, 2015 and 2016).
• For the second-straight year, Minnesota held the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest in school history. Minnesota finished the season in a 3-1 loss to eventual NCAA champion, Stanford, in the Final Four.
• Minnesota held a perfect 17-0 season at the Sports Pavilion and have now won 36-straight matches on its home court. The win streak spans over the course of three seasons. The Gophers won their final four matches in 2014 (starting on Oct. 25, 2014), went 15-0 at the Sports Pavilion in 2015 and won 17-straight in 2016. Minnesota's 2016 average attendance was 4,835, over a 650 increase from 2015 (4,172). The Sports Pavilion roughly holds 5,500 fans, a venue smaller that the top three in average attendance, Nebraska, Hawaii and Wisconsin.
• Minnesota garnered three All-America honors in Samantha Seliger-Swenson (First Team), Sarah Wilhite (First Team) and Hannah Tapp (Second Team). Molly Lohman and Alexis Hart also received All-America honorable mention accolades.
• Sarah Wilhite was named the AVCA National Player of the Year. Going from never receiving even an all-conference honorable mention award, Wilhite saved her best season for her last. She was named a four-time Big Ten Player of the Week and the AVCA National Player of the Week once. Wilhite became the first Gopher to ever receive this award. She finished her career with over 1,100 kills.
• Paige Tapp also put volleyball, but the entire University of Minnesota on the map when she was named the Senior CLASS Award winner. Tapp is not only the first Gopher Volleyball student-athlete to win the award, but the first-ever Gopher to don the honor. The CLASS award, given out to just one student-athlete in each sport, embodies the true student-athlete, in the classroom, on the court and in the community.
• The Gophers tied for second in the Big Ten with a 17-3 league mark. Sarah Wilhite was named the Big Ten Player of the Year and Samantha Seliger-Swenson was named Setter of the Year. Hannah Tapp was also named an All-Big Ten selection. It marks the second-straight year a Gopher was honored as Daly Santana received the award in 2015. Seliger-Swenson is the first Gopher to receive Setter of the Year as the award was created in 2012.
• In her first year as a Gopher, Alexis Hart was named the AVCA North Region Freshman of the Year, All-America honorable mention and was a member of the All-Big Ten Freshman Team. The rookie was a three-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
• Paige Tapp was named a First Team CoSIDA Academic All-American. It marked the second-straight season Tapp was named an Academic All-American, after she garnered second team honors as a junior. Paige and Hannah Tapp and were named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District.
• The Gophers also had 10 receive Academic All-Big Ten honors: Maddie Beal, Sophie Beckley, Margaret Eggert, Erica Handley, Dalianliz Rosado, Katie Schau, Samantha Seliger-Swenson, Hannah Tapp, Paige Tapp and Sarah Wilhite.
• Minnesota had its largest senior class in over a decade. Eggert, Handley, Schau, Tapp, Tapp and Wilhite was the Gophers' largest class since 2004. Four of them, Eggert, Handley, Tapp and Tapp all graduated from the U of M in December 2016.
• Minnesota had future Gopher Stephanie Samedy compete in the 2016 Under Armour All-America match in conjunction with the NCAA Final Four. Samedy was also named the East's Most Valuable Player.
