Women's Volleyball | 05/29/2020

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – As a sophomore in 2018, Hunter Weiss improved her hitting percentage from a respectable .252 to a .323, and emerged as one of the top pin hitters in Division III. As a junior with the College of Saint Benedict volleyball team in 2019, Weiss was almost unstoppable.
 
Weiss hit nearly .400 and finished the year as one of just three non-middle hitters ranked in the top 50 in Division III in hitting percentage. She recorded just 41 errors on more than 1,000 swings, and earned two player of the year honors, as well as First Team All-American honors. For her impressive season that featured conference, regional and national honors, Weiss is the 2019-20 CSB Athlete of the Year.
 
This marks the second straight athlete of the year honor for Weiss, who shared co-Athlete of the Year honors in 2018-19 with cross country and track and field standout Morgan Pierce '19. Weiss was chosen again in 2019-20 out of a talented pool of nine student-athletes from the cross country, volleyball, basketball, soccer, swim and dive, indoor track and field, golf and hockey teams.
 
As a sophomore in 2018, Weiss led the MIAC with 425 kills. She finished at the top of the conference stat sheet for the second straight season in 2019 with 441 kills. While her kill total only increased by 16, it was her accuracy that kept opponents on their toes this season.
 
After hitting a .323 as a sophomore, Weiss improved by nearly three-quarters of a percent as a junior, and finished the season 10^th in Division III and second in the MIAC with a hitting percentage of .396. The increase in percentage came from a drop in hitting errors. After recording 74 errors in 2018, Weiss finished the team's 32-game season with just 41 attack errors on 1,010 swings. On the NCAA's list of total attacks this season Weiss is 130^th, her 41 errors was the least of all 250 athletes ranked by the NCAA.
 
Ten times this season Weiss didn't have a single attack error. She had five attack errors once, in the team's regional championship win over UW-Stevens Point, but until that match, the most errors she committed in a match was three. She hit .500 or better eight times, and .400 or better on six other occasions.
 
When Weiss wasn't busy on offense, she was keeping opposing offenses busy on defense. She finished second on the team and 13^th in Division III with 125 total blocks, and had a season-high eight blocks in a win over UW-River Falls on Sept. 27. She had 21 total blocks and 65 kills in the team's four-game national tournament run, including 20-plus kills in back-to-back games against Northwestern and Stevens Point in the NCAA Regional.
 
At the end of the season, Weiss – who became the 14^th athlete to reach the 1,000-kill milestone at CSB – earned MIAC Player of the Year, AVCA Central Region Player-of-the-Year and First Team All-American accolades. She also made history in the classroom, becoming the school's second-ever NCAA Elite 90 recipient in any sport, and earning CoSIDA First Team All-America honors – a first for Saint Benedict since 1999-00.
 
Weiss – who is already ninth in program history with 1,170 kills – looks to continue her climb up CSB's all-time leaderboard as a senior in 2020. After helping the program to its first Sweet 16 since 2012 and first Elite 8 since 2008, she also looks to use her accuracy to help take her team to the Elite 8 and beyond once again in her final year with the program.