Aspen Kridner Named KCAC Defender of the Week

It had been a long time coming, but, following another strong performance leading the Avila volleyball back line in their resounding sweep of Kansas Wesleyan over the weekend, longtime great Eagle libero Aspen Kridner was named KCAC Defender of the Week for the first time in her career for the week of October 26-November 1, the conference announced Monday.

Head coach Eric Majors was surprised with the news on this week's episode of the Eye on the Eagles podcast, but he certainly wasn't surprised by the news.

"One thing Aspen has been ever since I've been here is almost the same player every day," he said. "Every once in a while she'll have a little hiccup, but it's very rare, and when you have those people that you can rely on every day, it just makes coaching way easier because you can then just focus on other things to make those parts of the game better. She definitely was pretty amazing the other day – really great performance."

It truly was a career performance from the senior from Goddard, Kansas, who led all players with 26 digs in just three sets in her team's sweep of the Coyotes in Olathe over the weekend. That mark tied a season high in digs, set a new career high for digs in a three-set match, and was just two off her career-high for total digs in any match, set last October against Bethany. Against KWU she also chipped in three service aces, and five assists, the third time this season she's had at least that many of each and second time she's had both.

The 2019 Third Team All-KCAC libero now stands firmly in the league's top five and the nation's top 25 in both total aces and total digs. She takes home a weekly KCAC honor for the first time in her excellent Avila career; after the Eagles never won a weekly conference award in their first two seasons in the league, they've now claimed two over the last month, with Kridner following Hannah Lentell's Attacker of the Week honors two weeks ago.

Kridner and the Eagles will be back in action this week with a pair of road contests – at MidAmerica Nazarene on Wednesday, and then at Friends on Saturday. Like to live video and live stats can be found, as always, on our schedule page on avilathletics.com.