LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Five Centennial Conference volleyball players have been selected to the 2022 American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-America honorable mention team.
Gettysburg's Zanze Kuba-McCoy received the honor for the second straight year, while Franklin & Marshall's Gianna Mangiamele, Haverford's Taylor Jones, Johns Hopkins' Simone Adam, and Swarthmore's Kaylee Zhang were named to the All-America squad for the first time in their careers.
Kuba-McCoy, an outside hitter for the Bullets, also garnered first-team All-Centennial Conference (CC) honors. Appearing in 21 matches, she finished second on the team in kills with 203 and digs with 237. She also added 25 total blocks and 15 aces. She recorded 11 double-digit kill performances on the year and reached double figures in digs 13 times. She had eight double-doubles in 2022.
Posting a .325 hitting percentage throughout this year, Mangiamele was second in the Centennial Conference and eighth in the region with those numbers. Her hitting percentage was the 14th-best single-season total in program history. Mangiamele's 46 block assists this fall also rank as a top 30 single-season mark in school history. Mangiamele averaged 3.27 kills per set during Centennial Conference matches. Her .343 hitting percentage throughout CC regular season play was a top-five mark and helped her contribute 3.5 points per set to the team during its 8-2 conference record. Mangiamele finished the season with 270 total kills, registering double digit kill totals in 15 matches. She certainly closed the season playing her best volleyball of the fall as she hit over .300 on 14 occasions, including each of the team's last six matches.
Jones posted a breakout sophomore season in 2022. The Yorba Linda, Calif. product earned her second All-Centennial Conference nod in as many seasons after leading the conference in hitting percentage (.387), and finishing second in blocks per set (0.99) and third in total blocks (86). Haverford's primary blocker finished the season ranked 17th in Division III for hitting percentage, and 47th in blocks per set. Jones' .387 hitting percentage was also the second-best all-time in Haverford program history, behind just Steph Frank's 2000 season in which she tallied a .388 percentage for the Fords.
Adam's 399 kills this season currently ranks ninth in team history for kills in a single season, passing Simone Bliss who had 391 kills in 2018. She is now nine kills shy of moving into eighth place all-time. Adam is one of just 11 freshmen across the country to earn a spot on one of the All-America teams. She has led Johns Hopkins in kills in each of their first three NCAA Tournament matches, with 34 in total. She had a season-high 25 kills against conference foe Dickinson on Sept. 28.
Zhang put up mind-numbing stats throughout her 2022 campaign, shattering her personal bests in nearly every category. Highlights of her season include putting up a career best 24 kills and 25.5 points in a match against Dickinson College, tallying a personal best 22 digs against Dickinson, as well as a career high four blocks when facing off against NYU. Zhang's success led to a 17-9 record for the Garnet, with Swarthmore snagging both a Centennial Conference playoff berth as the #2 seed, and a spot in the NCAA DIII Volleyball Tournament.