Volleyball's Booth, Winters and Smith Honored With AVCA All-Region Honors

All-Region Honors

OMAHA, Neb. -- Three women with the Creighton Volleyball program have been honored by the American Volleyball Coaches Association with All-Region recognition.

Kirsten Bernthal Booth has been named the East Region Coach of the Year, Jaali Winters has been named East Region Freshman of the Year and both Winters and Lauren Smith were named First Team All-East Region. The East Region features 39 teams, including members of eight different leagues (Atlantic Coast, America East, Atlantic 10, BIG EAST, Colonial, Ivy, Mid-Eastern Athletic and Patriot).

Booth earns Regional Coach of the Year honors for the first time after guiding the Bluejays to a 27-8 record so far this season. Creighton qualified for its first Sweet 16 appearance last weekend with wins over Coastal Carolina and No. 23 North Carolina. The Bluejays won the BIG EAST Conference regular-season and tournament titles for the second consecutive season, and have won 22-of-23 matches since September 20. Booth is Creighton's first volleyball coach to ever be named Regional Coach of the Year.

Winters becomes Creighton's first volleyball player to earn Regional Freshman of the Year accolades after a standout season that also saw her be named unanimous BIG EAST Freshman of the Year. Winters has set a Creighton single-season record for kills in a season (534), and she leads the team with 16 double-doubles. Winters' 534 kills rank 10th-most nationally and are third among freshmen. Winters was a six-time BIG EAST Freshman of the Week and became the program's second freshman to ever earn First Team All-Conference honors last month.

Smith ascends to All-East Region First Team honors after being named an honorable-mention All-East Region selection in 2013. Smith leads the BIG EAST in hitting percentage (.344) and blocks per set (1.28) and she's third on the team with 324 kills. Smith's 166 total blocks ranks 10th nationally, She is the third player in CU history to earn multiple All-Region recognitions, joining Kelli Browning (3) and Megan Bober (2).

By virtue of their All-Region selections, Winters and Smith advance to All-America consideration, while Booth enters the running for National Coach of the Year honors. The AVCA announces its All-America selections next Wednesday (Dec. 16) leading up to the Final Four, to be held in Omaha.

Creighton continues its postseason run on Friday at 10 pm Central when it faces No. 1 overall seed USC in a Regional semifinal that will be televised by ESPNU.

Here are the 2015 DI Region Coaches of the Year:

First Name	Last Name	School	Region
Kirsten	Bernthal Booth	Creighton University	East Region
Joshua	Steinbach	Villanova University	East Coast Region
Ray	Bechard	University of Kansas	Midwest Region
Hugh	McCutcheon	University of Minnesota	North Region
Chuck	Voss	Cleveland State University	Northeast Region
Keegan	Cook	University of Washington	Pacific North
Mick	Haley	University of Southern California	Pacific South
Lauri	Corbelli	Texas A&M University	South Region
Lisa	Seifert	SMU	Southeast Region
David	Rehr	Arkansas State University

Volleyball's Booth, Winters and Smith Honored With AVCA All-Region Honors

Players Mentioned

Kelli Browning

Lauren Smith

Jaali Winters

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