Jenna Coates, Kaitlyn McIntyre earn MAC volleyball honors

The volleyball team swept Mid-American Conference West Division offensive and defensive honors this week.

“I think we could have had it several times already, but I guess we had to match up against the team who kept winning the award,” head coach Erik Olson said. “I thought both players deserved it.”

Junior Jenna Coates and sophomore Kaitlyn McIntyre were named MAC West players of the week for their performances last weekend.

“The award was a great honor, and our teammates played awesome this weekend and put up some awesome balls,” McIntyre said. “I was really proud of Jenna, too, for getting it.”

Coates earned defensive player of the week status with 31 digs and six assists in the match against Northern Illinois. She compiled 16 digs in the Western Michigan game Saturday, helping the team hold the Broncos to a .139 hitting percentage.

Averaging 5.21 digs each game for the weekend, Coates ranks in the top-50 nationwide in digs per set.

“It’s sweet,” Coates said. “Pretty much, we just owned Saturday night, and it’s a pretty good feeling that both of us could share together.”

McIntyre had a career-high game against WMU with 27 kills and 14 digs. She ended the night with a .353 hitting percentage, helping her team defeat the pre-season top-rated Broncos.

On Friday, she compiled 16 kills and 12 digs with a hitting percentage of .289 against NIU.

“It was pretty awesome; Western (Michigan) is an awesome team, so to do that against them was awesome,” McIntyre said.

While giving credit to his sophomore outside hitter, Olson said the whole defense deserves credit this week.

“That was quite a night, but yeah, her night was pretty big,” Olson said. “Our defense created opportunities for her. I really think our defense won it, but certainly McIntyre was a big part of it.”

After the weekend, McIntyre’s average kills per set reached 5.38 kills per set, leading the team with 175 kills this season.

“I don’t know if we have ever swept it, so that may be a first for us,” Olson said. “I literally wrote an e-mail to the team and said, ‘finally!’ There are a lot of good players out there that deserve it, but we are pretty happy they are Chippewas.”