Arkansas Volleyball Fact Sheet #16-Final

Season ends with Missouri StateThe University of Arkansas volleyball team’s 2006 season came to an end Friday, Dec. 1 with a 3-1 loss to Missouri State in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament. Missouri State fell to Oklahoma who advanced to the Regional Championship in Hawai’i.
Seniors End CareersThe careers of three seniors came to a close Friday. Amy Allison, Kele Brewer and Denitza Koleva finished their careers in the Cardinal and White.
Seniors Get It DoneThe 2006 senior class is the only class in Arkansas history to reach the NCAA Tournament all four seasons. This year’s senior class accounted for more than half (1065 of 2058) points this year.
Koleva has breakout yearSenior Denitza Koleva set personal bests in nearly every statistical category this year. Koleva posted a career-best 456 kills, 1193 attempts and a .241 hitting percentage. She had a career-best 32 assists and 359 digs and four block solos. She tied her single-season best with 68 total blocks. Finally, her 521.0 points was also a personal season best.
More about KolevaDenitza Koleva tallied a career-best 29 kills against Kentucky. She holds all of the top 10 single match kill totals this year. Koleva recorded 18 kills three times, 19 kills three times, and had matches with 20, 21 and 23 kills this year.
Tough on the SECThe Southeastern Conference had seven teams in the NCAA Tournament but only Florida remains. Five of the league teams (Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and LSU) were bounced in the first round. Kentucky reached the second round and only Florida advanced into the Regional.
About the bracketSixteen teams remain in the NCAA Tournament. Fifteen of the 16 were seeded heading into the first week of the postseason. California "upset" 15th seed Cal-Poly and is the only unseeded team to advance.
Tough run in the middleArkansas lost five consecutive SEC matches at the mid-point of the year. That is the longest conference losing streak in school history. In addition to the longest SEC losing streak, it is also the longest losing streak ever in the history of the program. Arkansas lost four in a row in 2004 the second week of the season falling to No. 22 Santa Clara, Michigan State, No. 6 Washington and Wichita State.
A splash in the PooleArkansas head coach Chris Poole continues to do good things for the Lady’Backs. His 16 wins in 2006 marks the 13th time in 13 seasons that the Lady’Backs have had at least 16 wins. It is the 20th time in 21 seasons as a head coach that Poole’s teams have posted double-digit wins. Poole has coached at the NCAA Tournament nine times at Arkansas and been to the postseason 11 times in 13 seasons with the Lady’Backs. He has an Arkansas record of 304-142 (.682) and an SEC record of 153-51 (.750), His overall record is 538-211 (.718).
Allison comes on strongSenior Amy Allison started slowly but finished strong in 2006. Allison hit a career-best .800 against Georgia with 13 kills, one error and 15 attempts. She holds five of the top 10 single-match hitting performances this year.
I’m diggin’ itAshley Miller has rewritten the Arkansas dig records. She set a single match mark with 36 against Mississippi in a five-game thriller. She holds the single-season record with 548 set last year and ranks second all-time for career digs with 1556. She is just one of two players (Krystal Osborne, 1994-97) to have more than 1,500 career digs.
Clark gets 18Redshirt freshman Destiny Clark tallied a school record 18 total blocks against Mississippi. Clark eclipsed the previous record of 15 held by Libby Windell. She earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors and was named to the SEC all-freshman team in 2006.