Volleyball

Shields, Robinson lead way as Mendoza’s Gamecocks return to NCAA Tournament PROGRAM CHANGERS Mikayla Shields

When it was announced that South Carolina made the NCAA Tournament last season, its players leaped in the air and cheered wildly. The team held a watch party in a suite at Williams-Brice Stadium and invited media to cover the expected celebration. This year there was no party. The Gamecocks sat firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

“Obviously we felt like it was going to be really close. We liked our résumé,” Gamecock head coach Tom Mendoza said. On Dec. 1, the day of the selection show, senior Courtney Koehler’s mind kept coming back to her team’s impending fate.

“I would literally start thinking about volleyball and would get really tense and start shaking,” she said. “I was super nervous.”

For senior Mikayla Shields, nerves built up in the last half hour before the selection show. “All those worries and angst, but also excitement,” she said. After only nine minutes of waiting, the team learned its résumé was good enough for the bubble not to burst. The team celebrated when its name was announced for a second straight year, albeit this time with a few more By Josh Hyber | Staff writer • Photo by SC Athletics

hands covering mouths in excited shock.

The Gamecocks — 19-11 and 11-7 in the SEC — earned a trip to Seattle to face Colorado State on Dec. 6. The 11 conference wins are the most for the program since 2008.

“I’m incredibly thrilled for our group,” Mendoza said. “It’s a group that likes to come into the gym every day and get to spend time together. So the fact that we get an extra week that they earned is incredibly rewarding and what we set out at the beginning of the year to try to accomplish.

“I’m thrilled, especially for our upperclassmen and seniors who

have built this program so much, and for them to get a chance to keep going and make the NCAA Tournament and put another banner in the gym, I think those are things we’re all pretty excited about.” ALL-SEC PICKS Two of those upperclassmen — senior Mikayla Shields and junior Mikayla Robinson — earned All-SEC honors. Shields became the first three-time honoree for the Gamecocks since now assistant coach Shonda Cole Wallace in 2006, and Robinson made the team for the second consecutive season. It’s the first time since 2002 South Carolina had multiple honorees in back-to-back seasons. Shields ranked ninth in the SEC in hitting percentage and tenth in kills, making her the only hitter in the conference to rank in the top ten in both categories. The Orlando, Fla. native ranked third in the SEC in aces, seventh in points and 11th in double-doubles. Despite attempting over 200 more attacks than any other player on the roster this season, her .324 hitting percentage was sixth highest in the program in the rally-scoring era. In the program’s all-time history, Shields ranks in the top 10 in kills, attacks, hitting percentage and points. She also cracked the 1,500 career kill milestone in the team’s regular-season finale.

“I think last year was a lesson in, ‘This is what we can do,’ and this year was a lesson in, ‘Let’s see how far we can go,’” she said. “… We turned this program around as a team and as a group.”

Robinson enjoyed a career year on offense and defense, totaling 2.42 kills and 1.24 blocks per set with a .338 hitting percentage. The junior’s 130 total blocks (26 solo) are second-most in the rally-scoring era and ranked 45th nationally.

Her 26 solo blocks were the most in the SEC. Her 96 total blocks in SEC play led the conference despite South Carolina playing the second-fewest sets (61) in SEC play. On offense, her .338 hitting percentage is fourthhighest for a single season in the program’s rally-scoring era and the highest since 2008.