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The Big West unveiled its 2024 postseason honors on the eve of The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2024 Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship, with Caylen Alexander of Hawai’i headlining the honorees, as voted on by the league’s 11 head coaches.  

The Big West offensive leader for the Rainbow Wahine, Alexander claims Player of the Year honors after a stellar junior campaign. The native of Alpharetta, Ga., enters the postseason pacing the conference in various statistical categories including kills (5.24), points (5.80) and attacks (11.88) per set. Along with leading the league, the outside hitter’s numbers are good for the top five in NCAA Division I. A UH player has now won four of the last five Player of the Year awards. 

Joining Alexander on the All-Big West first team is teammate and two-time Setter of the Year Kate Lang. Lang, a senior from Keller, Texas, has guided the Rainbow Wahine offense with 10.58 assists per set and a .244 team hitting percentage en route to the No. 2 seed in the Championship bracket. Lang was also honored as The Big West’s top setter in 2022. The Big West Libero of the Year and second team pick Tayli Ikenaga enters the postseason averaging a team-high 4.02 digs per set to give UH three of the five major awards. 
 

The regular-season victors from Cal Poly also placed a pair on the All-Big West first team with redshirt senior Tommi Stockham and redshirt sophomore Breklyn Pulling making the eight-member list. Stockham, an outside hitter from Las Vegas, rates second in the conference in kills (3.66) and points (4.24) per set and is making a fourth consecutive first-team appearance. Stockham is just the 14th player in Big West history to earn four All-Big West first team nods and is the long 2024 honoree making consecutive first-team appearances. Pulling, a middle blocker from Highlands Ranch, Colo., leads the Mustangs with 102 total blocks, or 0.98 per set. This is Pulling’s first year on the Cal Poly team after transferring from Cal State Bakersfield. 
 

Guiding the Mustangs to their first regular-season title since 2018, Caroline Walters was tabbed as Coach of the Year. This is Walters’ fifth season at the helm of the Cal Poly squad, and the team has notched back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in the tenure. 
 

The senior trio of Olivia Utterback, Natalie Glenn and Emily McDaniel power their respective team and land on the first team. Utterback, an opposite hitter hailing from Plainfield, Ind., rates third in The Big West in both kills (3.63) and points (4.19) per set to pace the third-seeded UC Davis Aggies. Glenn is the Long Beach State team leader in multiple facets of the game, averaging 2.98 kills, 3.58 points and 2.41 digs per set with a team-high 30 total aces for the outside hitter from Southlake, Texas. McDaniel is a middle blocker from Anaheim, Calif., on the UC San Diego squad. McDaniel is hitting .297 on the season and is denying a team-best 1.14 blocks per set to pace the UCSD defensive presence at the net.  
 

Utterback and Glenn were both second team selections last season, with McDaniel up from the honorable mention listings. The trio represent the third, fourth and fifth-seeded squads in The Big West’s postseason event. 
 

Rounding out the first-team selections is Big West Freshman of the Year Eva Travis of UC Santa Barbara. Travis’ 3.35 kills and 3.86 points per set paced the Gauchos in 2024. Travis also headlines seven-member The Big West’s All-Freshman team.  
 

The All-Big West second team sees conference blocks leader Kameron Bacon of Long Beach State (1.26 b/s) joined by teammate and 2023 Big West Setter of the Year Zayna Meyer. UC Davis also sees a pair of performers on the second team in sophomore middle blocker Ally Chandler and junior outside hitter Jade Light. Cal Poly setter Emme Bullis, libero Campbell Jensen of UC Irvine and UC Riverside sophomore opposite hitter Trinity Sheridan round out the second team. Sheridan, a transfer from Division II Cal State San Bernardino, is the first Highlander selected to the top two teams since 2015. 

Alongside UC Santa Barbara’s Travis on the All-Freshman Team is a pair from Cal Poly in Elif Hurriyet and Chloe Leluge. Leluge holds The Big West benchmark in hitting percentage at .372. Ximena Cordero Barr of UC Davis, dual threat players Audrey Hollis of UC San Diego and LBSU’s Madi Maxwell and Miliana Sylvester of Hawai’i complete the seven-player lineup. 
 

The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2024 Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship gets underway Wednesday from the Bren Events Center on the campus of UC Irvine. Fifteen of the 17 members of the All-Big West first and second teams will be in action this week competing for the league’s automatic berth into the 2024 NCAA Division I Championship field. Single- and all-session tickets are available for all three days of action at BigWest.org/wvbtix.