{"id":22240,"date":"2020-01-06T11:07:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T17:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=22240"},"modified":"2020-01-06T11:07:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T17:07:17","slug":"baylor-volleyballs-pressley-named-avca-national-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2020\/01\/baylor-volleyballs-pressley-named-avca-national-player-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Baylor volleyball&#8217;s Pressley named AVCA National Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-22241\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/pressley-jan20.jpg\" alt=\"Baylor volleyball's Yossiana Pressley goes for the kill against Texas\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/pressley-jan20.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/pressley-jan20-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/pressley-jan20-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/pressley-jan20-1024x512.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Shortly before Christmas, Baylor junior Yossiana Pressley was named the National Player of the Year by both the <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2019\/12\/20\/volleyball-vbs-pressley-named-avca-national-player-of-the-year.aspx\">American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA)<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/story\/_\/id\/28299962\/baylor-yossiana-pressley-headlines-espnw-all-america-ncaa-volleyball-team\">ESPNW<\/a> &#8212; the first such honor in Baylor volleyball history, capping off a historic season that saw the Bears reach the NCAA Final Four.<\/p>\n<p>Pressley&#8217;s combination of athleticism (the photo above showing her incredible leaping abilities went viral on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/natalieweiner\/status\/1197355542097879045\">Twitter<\/a>) and skills\u00a0give her an incredible attack. The Northwest Houston native led the Big 12 and finished among the nation&#8217;s top 10 in kills (2nd), points (4th) and attacks (9th) per set, and in total kills (10th).<\/p>\n<p>Pressley joins an elite set of Baylor student-athletes who have earned national player of the year honors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jason Jennings (baseball, 1999)<\/li>\n<li>Benedikt Dorsch (men&#8217;s tennis, 2005)<\/li>\n<li>Zuzana Zemenova (women&#8217;s tennis, 2005)<\/li>\n<li>Robert Griffin III (football, 2011)<\/li>\n<li>Brittney Griner (women&#8217;s basketball, 2012 &amp; 2013)<\/li>\n<li>Kiara Nowlin (acrobatics &amp; tumbling, 2015 &amp; 2017)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Baylor volleyball&#8217;s season came to an end just before Christmas, when <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2019\/12\/19\/volleyball-vb-concludes-historic-season-in-ncaa-national-semifinals.aspx\">Wisconsin defeated the Bears in the national semifinals<\/a>. In the end, the Bears set school records for wins (29), deepest NCAA run, and best final national ranking (3rd). <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2019\/12\/19\/vbs-mcguyre-named-avca-national-coach-of-the-year.aspx\">McGuyre was named AVCA National Coach of the Year<\/a>, and Pressley joined teammates Hannah Lockin and Shelly Stafford on the <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2019\/12\/18\/volleyball-vb-lands-three-avca-first-team-all-america-selections.aspx\">AVCA All-America first team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Baylor volleyball!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shortly before Christmas, Baylor junior Yossiana Pressley was named the National Player of the Year by both the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) and ESPNW &#8212; the first such honor in Baylor volleyball history, capping off a historic season that saw the Bears reach the NCAA Final Four. Pressley&#8217;s combination of athleticism (the photo above [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}