Winters and Kloth Earn CoSIDA Academic All-America Honors

OMAHA, Neb. -- Creighton's Jaali Winters and Taryn Kloth have been named to the Google Cloud Academic All-America Division I Women's Volleyball team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). The pair make Creighton Volleyball one of two programs nationally with multiple Academic All-Americans, joining LSU.

Winters is a Second Team choice, while Kloth landed on the Third Team.

Winters and Kloth are the second and third Creighton student-athletes named CoSIDA Academic All-American this fall, joining First Team selection Sven Koenig from the men's soccer team. Kloth joins Emily Greisch (2006, Third Team), Megan Bober (2012, Second Team) and Winters (2017, Third Team) as Creighton Volleyball players to earn Academic All-America recognition from CoSIDA. Winters and Kloth are the only student-athletes on any of the 2018 CoSIDA Division I Volleyball Academic All-America teams from a school in Nebraska, and join Marquette's Allie Barber in representing the BIG EAST on the prestigious teams.

Winters is one of five volleyball athletes nationwide to repeat as an Academic All-American. The senior outside hitter from Ankeny, Iowa, set more than 90 school-records in her career, including marks for career kills (1,843), attacks (5,093), points (2045.5) matches played (139) and matches started (138). Winters was named BIG EAST Player of the Year and BIG EAST Tournament MVP in 2018, averaging 3.82 kills and 3.06 digs per set. She is a four-time First Team All-BIG EAST pick, as well as a four-time First Team All-East Region selection by the AVCA. Winters becomes Creighton Volleyball's first two-time Academic All-American, and the eighth in in Creighton history across all sports to be recognized multiple times.

Kloth led Creighton with 4.15 kills per set and also ranked among the BIG EAST leaders by hitting .283. Her 490 kills are the most in CU history by a senior, and the Sioux Falls, S.D., native ranked fourth in school history with 1,427 career kills. Twice a First Team All-Region selection for her play on the court, this is Kloth's first Academic All-America honor. She is the 40th different individual in the history of Creighton Athletics to be named a CoSIDA Academic All-American.

Both Kloth and Winters will graduate this month from Creighton.

Joining Winters on the second team was Northern Colorado graduate student Brittany Lawrence, who spent the first four years of her college career at Creighton.

Of the 22 members of the 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I volleyball team, 18 have at least a 3.90 GPA, with 14 student-athletes sporting a 4.0 GPA or better. The seven members of the first team all have a GPA of 3.99 or better. Iowa's Molly Kelly was named the CoSIDA Academic All-America of the Year in volleyball.

CoSIDA, which stands for College Sports Information Directors of America, takes into account the academic and athletic achievements of student-athletes, and began honoring student-athletes in 1952. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) at his/her current institution. Nominated athletes must have participated in at least 50 percent of the team's games, and no student-athlete is eligible until he/she has completed one full calendar year at his/her current institution and has reached sophomore athletic eligibility. In the cases of transfers, graduate students and two-year college graduates, the student-athlete must have completed one full calendar year at the nominating institution to be eligible. Graduate students who are competing at a different institution than the one from which they earned their undergraduate degree are eligible even if they are in their first semester at the graduate institution.

Creighton finished the 2018 season with a 29-5 record, winning BIG EAST regular-season and tournament titles for the fifth straight season. The Bluejays are coached by Kirsten Bernthal Booth.

FIRST TEAM
Name                                           School                                                                  Yr.     GPA            Major
Allie Barber                         Marquette University                               Jr     3.99         Biomedical Science
Olivia Beyer                        Louisiana State University                         Sr.    4.10         Nutrition & Food Sciences
Ann Hollas (3)                      Stephen F. Austin State University              Jr.     4.00         Biology
Molly Kelly                          University of Iowa                                   Sr.    4.06         International Studies / Religious Studies
Ali Line                               Illinois State University                             Sr.    4.00         Nursing
Kristen Stucker (2)                 Austin Peay State University                     Sr.    4.00         Biology & Agriculture (Pre-Veterinary)
Anna Zwiebel (3)                  Louisiana State University                         Jr.     4.09         Kinesiology

SECOND TEAM
Name                                           School                                                                  Yr.     GPA            Major
Tami Alade                         Stanford University                                 Sr.    3.56         Human Biology
Kayla Davenport                  Houston Baptist University                         Gr.   4.00         Kinesiology / Sport Management
Madison Green                    Texas A&M - Corpus Christi                      Jr.     4.00         Biology
Morgan Hash                       Georgia State University                         Jr.     4.15         Public Health
Brittany Lawrence                 University of Northern Colorado                Gr.   4.00         Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Patricia Mattingly (3)            U.S. Naval Academy                               Sr.    3.85         Applied Mathematics
Chloe Rojas                         Eastern Kentucky University                      Sr.    4.00         Journalism / Spanish
Jaali Winters (3)                  Creighton University                                Sr.    3.90         Business Intelligence & Analytics

THIRD TEAM
Name                                           School                                                                  Yr.     GPA            Major
Megan Anderson                  Hartford                                               So.   4.00         Biology
Sarah Bell                           University of Southern Mississippi                Sr.    3.97         Biological Sciences
Santita Ebangwese               Syracuse University                                 Sr.    3.73         Bioengineering
Erika Ianovale                      North Carolina Central University              Sr.    4.00         Mass Communications
Roni Jones-Perry                   Brigham Young University                         Sr.    3.63         Exercise Science
Taryn Kloth                         Creighton University                                Sr.    3.86         Finance
Samantha McLean                Michigan State University                         Jr.     4.00         Kinesiology (Pre-Med)

Google Cloud Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year: Molly Kelly, University of Iowa

(2) – CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I second team selection in 2017
(3) – CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I third team selection in 2017

Winters and Kloth Earn CoSIDA Academic All-America Honors

Players Mentioned

Taryn Kloth

Brittany Lawrence

Jaali Winters

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