Stanford juniors Erik Shoji and Brad Lawson repeated as first-team men’s volleyball All-Americans, as announced by the American Volleyball Coaches Association on Thursday.
This is the third first-team honor for Shoji and the second for Lawson.
Shoji, a libero, becomes the second Stanford player to receive three first-team honors from the AVCA, which has selected All-America teams since 1991. He joins Matt Fuerbringer, who earned first-team honors in 1994, ’96, and ’97). Two other Cardinal players – Scott Fortune (’86, ’87, ’89) and Dan Hanan (’88, ’89, ’90) – earned three first-team All-America honors through other organizations.
Lawson, an outside hitter, becomes one of six Cardinal players to earn multiple AVCA first-team honors, joining Shoji, Fuerbringer, Canyon Ceman (’92, ’93), Dave Goss (’92, ’93), and Erik’s brother Kawika Shoji (2009, ’10). In addition, Duncan Blackman (’90, ’92) and Jon Root (’84, ’86) earned various first-team honors, giving Stanford 10 multiple first-team All-Americans in its history.
Shoji and Lawson, both from Honolulu, Hawaii, but from different high schools (Shoji went to Punahou, Lawson to Iolani), led the Cardinal to a 19-9 record and third place in the rugged Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Stanford lost in the first round of the MPSF tournament to Long Beach State on Saturday, but will find out Sunday if it secured an at-large berth in the four-team NCAA tournament May 5-7 in University Park, Pa.
Earlier this season, Shoji broke Fortune’s Stanford career record for digs — Shoji has 1,098, to Fortune’s 976. This season, Shoji’s 286 digs and 2.62 digs per set are each second in the country.
Lawson is No. 2 on Stanford’s all-time kills list during the rally-scoring era (since 2001) with 1,377. He averaged 4.33 kills per set and had a .331 hitting percentage. Lawson earned first-team All-MPSF honors the past two years as well, having been selected as the MPSF Player of the Year and NCAA Tournament co-Most Outstanding Player along with Kawika Shoji last year.
Tennis
Six Stanford players punched their ticket to Friday’s singles quarterfinal round on Thursday afternoon during the opening day of the Pac-10 Championships in Ojai.
Bradley Klahn and Denis Lin are through on the men’s side, while Kristie Ahn, Mallory Burdette, Nicole Gibbs and Stacey Tan all won their first two matches in the women’s draw.
Cardinal senior Hilary Barte is not competing this weekend, instead taking the time off to rest up for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Barte reached the Pac-10 singles and doubles finals last season before falling in both.
— Palo Alto Online Sports/Dave Kiefer of Stanford Sports Information
— Palo Alto Online Sports/Dave Kiefer of Stanford Sports Information
— Palo Alto Online Sports/Dave Kiefer of Stanford Sports Information