Eight universities composed of international athletes will continue their athletic obligations in the 1st round of the NCAA Tournament. More specifically, Tatiana Armoutsi, Beste Ayhan, Efrosini Bakodimou, Nisa Buzlutepe, Ilayda Demirtas, Stella Giourda, Irini Glynou, Mila Ilieva, Aristea Tontai, Irem Ucar and Peyman Yardimci are preparing hard for the first match on December 2nd. Along with that, the 2021 National Invitational Volleyball Championship begins on the same date. The schools with international student-athletes that are part of the NIVC are Bradley, Chicago State, Middle Tennessee, Pacific, UTEP and UTRGV. Read below about the athletes who completed their regular seasons for 2021:
Ozkan’s Iowa Western won the NJCAA D1 National Championship for the 2nd season in a row and Duru had a new career high of 9 assists… twice! Beste Ayhan and Mila Ilieva’s UMBC claimed the 2021 America East title and Irem Ucar’s FAMU the 2021 SWAC title! New career high for Ucar with 61 assists, Suvarioglu with 42 assists and Yardimci with 9 blocks! More double-doubles for Sabire Karacaova with 17 kills and 17 digs and Peyman Yardimci with 16 kills and 11 digs! Peyman also received her second ACC Freshman of the Week award in November! Ucar made it to her school’s record book, in the All-SWAC 1st team and was named SWAC’s setter of the year!
Bakodimou’s Towson was CAA Champion in 2019 and in 2020, and now in 2021! With this streak Towson is the first university after George Mason in 1996 to get 3 titles in a row at the Colonial Athletic Association Conference! Along with Bakodimou, Eirini Glynou’s University of South Alabama captured its first program SBC Championship title! With a new career high of 18 digs, Iro Hounta completed this season by raising the bar even higher for next year! Another double-double with 14 kills and 13 digs for Darina Kumanova in the win against the Top-25 University of San Diego! Aristea Tontai added another very good appearance in her bio, being a wall for the Miami Hurricanes with a new career high of 10 blocks! Ariadni Kathariou bids farewell to her St. John’s Red Storm season emphatically, and captures second place overall in total blocks in NCAA D1!
With four players in the NJCAA D1 national championship match, two apiece at Iowa Western and New Mexico Military Institute, the Nomos volleyball family was torn this weekend :)
And what a weekend it was for top-notch volleyball, none better and more intensely competitive than the epic championship matchup between the IWCC Reivers and the NMMI Broncos.
Picking up from where they left off last year, Ioanna Chatzileonti and Ioanna Krimili lead their universities to get some Ws to start their seasons the right way. Ioanna Chatzileonti with a couple of awesome outings scored 23 pts in her first two games against SIUE and Tennessee State. She’s shooting 7/13 (54%) from the field and 1/1 3pt. Against Tennessee State she knocked down all 8/8 of her free throws, for a perfect 100% to start her season in a focused way, while she carried on her solid rebounding performance from last year (first for her team and among the top rebounders in Big12 and the NCAA). She had 9 rebounds her first game and 8 her second game, with her first double-double probably looming shortly. She added 3 blocks for good measure, and the sky’s the limit for her this year.
Sevgi Koyuncu’s indoor collegiate volleyball career came to an end last Saturday. The Turkish libero has some outstanding defensive skills that put her in the 4th place in SAC for total digs and digs per set! Ayhan & Ilieva’s UMBC is 1st in the AEC having the perfect conference record of 12-0! On top of that, both have a place in AEC’s top hitting percentage board: Beste is 2nd and Mila is 9th! Peyman Yardimci is leading the Miami Hurricanes to more dubs, being her team’s top scorer once again!
Papageorgiou outdid herself in a historic win against Austin Peay and showed hard work makes the dream work! Faki, Psoma, Anagnostou and Karakasi recorded double doubles, significantly enhancing the performance of their teams. In fact, Psoma, with her new career high of 22 kills, was only 4 kills away from the highest number of kills (26) for SSC this season. Mpampiri in the 2nd All-Conference team! National rankings for Bakodimou, 3rd in NCAA for aces, and Kathariou, 2nd in NCAA for blocks!
With the season just underway in collegiate women's basketball teams, international girls started to make a difference in the box scores. Elena Bosgana had her maiden voyage with the national champion Stanford Cardinal, and delivered a great performance, helping Stanford to an easy win, leading the positive column of the box score with a +34 efficiency rating, adding 4/8 FGs, 2/4 3pters, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.
