Saint Louis senior outside hitter Danielle Rygelski has been named an AVCA honorable mention All-American, the organization announced today. She is the first Billiken volleyball player to earn All-American accolades since Bridget Fonke, Sammi McCloud and Whitney Roth were given the plaudit in 2009. Rygelski also earned AVCA first team All-Midwest Region honors earlier this month.
“This All-America recognition is a well-deserved honor for Danielle,” Saint Louis head volleyball coach Kent Miller said. “Throughout her career she has been determined to compete at the highest level in order to help our team be successful. She has worked diligently toward this goal both as a player and as a teammate. This season, Danielle exceeded everyone’s already high expectations and led our team -and the nation- in many statistical categories. She has represented our program, the Athletic Department and Saint Louis University in a exemplary manner and truly represents the best of what the student-athlete impact and can be. We congratulate her on this award.”
This season Rygelski set an NCAA record with 715 kills, most for a player in the 25-point rally-scoring era. She is the second player in the same era to record more than 6.00 kills per set (6.01). Rygelski still leads the NCAA in total kills (715), kills per set (6.01), points (808.0) and points per set (6.79). She also ranks third in aces (65) and fourth in total attacks (1,620). Rygelski earned a record-setting seven Atlantic 10 Player of the Week awards en route to the 2016 Atlantic 10 Volleyball Player of the Year award.
Rygelski recently wrote a column for Volleyball Magazine documenting her career at SLU. Read the story here.
