Sander named to AVCA All-America First Team

PROVO, Utah—The American Volleyball Coaches Association named BYU outside hitter Taylor Sander to the All-America First Team Thursday, the senior’s third career first-team honor and fourth All-America honor.

Sander, who was also named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Year for the second time, led the No. 4 Cougars to their second-straight league title. BYU shared the honor with Pepperdine, finishing 18-6 in conference play.

The 6-foot-4 product of Huntington Beach, Calif., is No. 2 in the nation for kills per set with 4.53, hitting .331. This season he broke the BYU rally-scoring era record for career kills (1,685) and the BYU all-time record for service aces in a match (nine). He is second in the rally-scoring era for career attempts (3,343), and season service aces (48). He needs only four more aces this season to break the season service aces record.

Thursday night, Sander and the Cougars take on UC Santa Barbara in the MPSF tournament semifinals, looking to defend their 2013 league tournament title. The match will be broadcast live from the Smith Fieldhouse on BYUtv at 8 p.m. MDT.

The MPSF had 14 All-America citations this season, with seven first-teamers and seven second-teamers. BYU’s semifinal opponent UC Santa Barbara had one second-team All-American in sophomore setter Jonah Seif.

The 2014 selections were made by the AVCA Division I-II Men's Volleyball All-America Committee: chairperson Mark Pavlik (Penn State); Brian Baise (Harvard); Sam Shweisky (Princeton); Wes Schneider (Cal Baptist); Kevin Ring (UC San Diego); John Kosty (Stanford); Pete Hanson (Ohio State), Dan Friend (Lewis); Jeremy Price (Grand Canyon); David Heller (Mount Olive).

Visit the AVCA website for more information on the AVCA All-America teams.