Even though the University of Northwestern Ohio volleyball season ended last week, it was still quite a week for New Bremen grad Devon Heitkamp, a senior on the UNOH squad.
Heitkamp was not only named first team all-Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, she was also named to the conference’s All-Academic Team. In addition, she was selected to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) NAIA first-team Academic All-District Team, which recognizes the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performance on the field and in the classroom. An accounting major, Heitkamp now advances to the CoSIDA Academic All-America ballot, and those honorees will be announced early next month.
On the court, Heitkamp hit .283 this season with 407 kills and 99 total blocks. She reached double figures in kills 21 times during the season, including 19 on four occasions, all of those coming in conference play. She hit .300 or higher in 16 matches, with a high of .520 with 14 kills against Indiana Tech.
Northwestern finished 23-12 this season.
Audrey Francis, Fairlawn
Francis has been outstanding on defense for the 16th-ranked Wheeling University’s volleyball team, and she was recognized for her efforts by the Mountain East Conference.
Francis earned her third straight MEC Libero of the Year and first team all-MEC. She ranks fourth in Division II with 6.16 digs per set and is 14th in the nation with 622 total digs. The former Jet standout surpassed 2,000 digs earlier this season.
Wheeling played two matches this past week, with Francis getting 22 digs in a 3-0 win over Concord and 12 in a 3-0 win over Glenville State.
Cassie Meyer, Jackson Center
Despite having to battle through injuries this season, Meyer is still having an excellent campaign for Wheeling, and the MEC took notice and named her to the all-MEC honorable mention list.
She ranked 10th in the conference with 3.0 kills per set and was third on the team and ninth in the conference with a .273 hitting percentage. In addition, she closed out the regular season with 3.48 digs per set.
In the two matches this week, Meyer had 18 kills in the win over Concord, and nine kills and six digs in the win over Glenville State.
She heads into postseason action with 276 kills and 320 digs this season.
Arielle Snider, Sidney
Snider is part of a national championship volleyball team after Owens Tech made it two in a row by winning the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) crown with three straight wins.
Snider, just a freshman, played a big part in the march to the title. She had six kills and two blocks in a 3-0 win over Jefferson Community College, four kills and two blocks in a 3-0 win over Brookhaven College, and seven kills and two solo blocks in the 3-0 championship win over Columbus State.
She finished the season with 209 kills and an impressive .384 hitting percentage.
Owens had a final record of 43-4.
Paige Jones, New Bremen
Jones and her Michigan volleyball teammates split a pair of Big Ten matches since last week, losing 3-0 to No. 5-ranked Minnesota before defeating Michigan State 3-2.
Against Minnesota, she had a double-double of 13 kills and 10 digs, and against Michigan State, she had 16 kills.
She now has 382 kills on the season and 217 digs.
Raquel Kessler, Jackson Center
Kessler and her Missouri-St. Louis volleyball teammates upped their record on the season to 27-3 with two recent victories.
Kessler, just a freshman, had nine kills and five blocks, including one solo, in a win over Missouri S&T, and followed that with nine kills, a .316 hitting percentage, and three blocks in a 3-0 win over Mayville, Mo.
She has 195 kills and 88 digs this season. She also leads the team in solo blocks with 20 and in total blocks with 99.
• Women’s basketball
Sylvia Hudson, Sidney
Hudson had two outstanding games for Urbana University in action this past week.
She had 26 points and six rebounds in a 94-88 win over Mt. Vernon and 18 points and seven rebounds in an 88-82 loss to Ohio Dominican.
Against Mt. Vernon, she was lights out from the field, hitting 9-for-13, including 2-for-2 from three-point land. She also hit six of her nine free throw attempts.
And against Ohio Dominican, she was 8-for-13 from the floor.
She averages 16.6 per game so far, along with 5.2 rebounds, is hitting a healthy 67 percent from the field and 79 percent from the line.
Urbana is off to a 3-2 start.
Kami McEldowney, Versailles
McEldowney is a teammate of Hudson’s on the Urbana women’s basketball team, and she had an excellent outing in the loss to Ohio Dominican, finishing with eight points, six assists and four steals.
Rebekah New, Houston
New plays for the Edison State women’s team and she had a huge game in a win over Henry Ford College recently, finishing with 23 points, six rebounds and three steals.
She followed that with eight points and five rebounds in a narrow loss to Mott Community College.
She is second on the team at 12.8 points per game, and is also averaging 5.2 rebounds per game.
• Men’s basketball
Nathan Lessing, Fairlawn
Lessing continues to score well for the 2-4 Northwestern Ohio squad.
In a loss to Rochester, he finished with 17 points and six rebounds, and in a loss to Lawrence Tech, he had 20 points on 9-for-15 shooting.
He is at 19.3 points per game so far and is hitting 51 percent from the field.
Grifffin Doseck, Anna
Doseck is a freshman seeing a lot of playing time at Capital University.
In a win over Trine recently, he finished with 11 points and eight rebounds, four of them at the offensive end. He came off the bench and wound up playing 29 minutes in the win.
• Cross country
Tami Groff, Versailles
Groff ended her college career by competing for Bluffton in the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional meet last weekend.
She finished fourth for Bluffton and 167th out of 233 runners overall in 25:38.
Molly Kearns, Russia
Kearns, a senior, ran for the Wright State women’s team in the D-I Great Lakes Regional on Saturday and placed third for the Raiders and 141st overall out of 215 runners in a time of 22:58.
