Pelzel earns national first-team honors

UC Irvine junior Jimmy Pelzel was named first-team All-America by the

American Volleyball Coaches Association at its 13th annual AVCA All-America awards for men’s volleyball.

With his first-team recognition, Pelzel becomes the most highly

decorated men’s volleyball player in UCI history. The Anteaters have

had three previous All-Americans (Erick Helenihi, 2001; Donny Rafter, 1999; Chris Harger 1997), but they were all second-team selections.

Pelzel, a 6-foot-5 right side/opposite hitter, helped propel UC

Irvine to its best season in school history. The team earned its

first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament victory and ended

the season 20-11 overall, shattering the school record for wins in a

season. Pelzel earned first-team All-MPSF after leading the Anteaters

on a 10-0 run to start the season and the No. 1 ranking in the USA

Today/AVCA Coaches Top 15 Poll for two weeks.

Nationally, the junior ranked second in points (6.37) and fourth

in kills (5.16) per game, while setting the single-season school

record for kills with 593 this year. He earned MPSF Player of the

Week three times and AVCA National Player of the Week once. He became

only the seventh Anteater player to break the 1,000-kill plateau and

currently ranks sixth (1,125) all-time.

Pelzel led the Anteaters to their first-ever MPSF Tournament

victory, upsetting fourth-ranked Stanford on the road in the

quarterfinals. He recorded his third career double-double with 29

kills and 10 digs in the 3-1 defeat of the Cardinal. Pelzel sparked

UCI with the score 24-21 in the fourth game, knocking down four of

the next six kills to set up match point, 30-29. It was the 15th time

this season he notched 20 or more kills in a match. He had seven

errors on 51 attempts for a .431 hitting percentage and added one

block assist.

When top-ranked Pepperdine defeated UCI in the MPSF semifinals,

Pelzel led all players with 26 kills, the 16th time Pelzel reached

the 20-kill milestone.