ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico volleyball program hosted its annual awards banquet on Friday, April 27, as it celebrated all of its outstanding work during the 2017 indoor volleyball and 2018 beach volleyball season.
To commemorate the teams’ successes on and off the courts, Nelson and his staff of Pauline Manser, Daniel Foo and Elsa Krieg put together an end-of-the-year awards banquet at Johnson Center, the home of Lobo volleyball.
The banquet featured speeches from Nelson and several of the players. A picture slide show and a highlight film were also on display during the event.
Nelson also presented a number of awards to both the indoor team and beach team.
Mariessa Carrasco earned the Cherry & Silver Award as the team’s most valuable player, while Lauren Twitty earned the Scholar-Athlete award for the indoor team and Emily Nenninger claimed the honor for the beach team.
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Nelson tabbed Carly Beddingfield for the Coaches Award, while Hailey Rubino earned the Captain’s Award. Beddingfield also claimed Top Newcomer for the indoor team, with Maddie Irwin & Erin Martin sharing the honor for the beach team.
Danica Rowan earned Most Improved honors indoors, with Chloe Crappell & Yasmin Tan sharing the recognition as the beach squad’s most improved partnership.
Twitty & Eastyn Baleto were selected as the top partnership for the beach team.
The program also awarded its two endowed scholarships that is has to recognize its athletes. The Jeanne Fairchild scholarship went to Mercedes Pacheco and the Lobo League scholarship went to Twitty.
Additionally, Twitty also received her All-Mountain West award, and seven Lobos — Tan, Rubino, Martin, Rowan, Kayla Long, Abbey Willison and Nicolette Clark — were given their UNM Lobo Letterman’s jackets.
The volleyball program also recognized its staff at the event with a pair of awards.
The Ruggiero Award went to Brian Ferguson, the team’s academic advisor, while the Lobo Award was awarded to Krieg, the team’s director of operations who helped organize not only the banquet and the program’s annual Grass Bash fundraiser, but also helped with the daily operations of the teams.