Feb. 22, 2012
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Four members of Wake Forest's volleyball program were named to the All-ACC Academic Team as announced by Commissioner John Swofford on Wednesday morning.
Senior Carlin Salmon, junior Andrea Beck and freshmen Dani Thompson and Danae Rosendall received the honors from the conference. Beck has now been named to the team following each of her three seasons, while this marks Salmon's second consecutive appearance on the squad.
To be eligible for consideration, each student-athlete must post at least a 3.0 grade point average for the previous semester in addition to maintaining a cumulative 3.0 GPA over their entire academic career.
Rosendall and Salmon started all 30 matches for the Demon Deacons, while Beck missed the first 10 contests of the season but returned to the starting lineup for all 20 of her appearances. Thompson did not record a start for the Deacs, but saw action in every match and played 111 out of a possible 113 sets.
Salmon, who hails from Wildwood, Mo., and will be graduating in May with a degree in communication, finished second on the team with 292 kills in 2011. Additionally, she was the lone Deacon to reach triple digits in total blocks with a team-leading 121. She and fellow senior Kadija Fornah were the only two players to appear in every set for Wake Forest. Salmon was instrumental in the upset over Duke on Sep. 16 as she had, arguably, her best match of the year with season-highs in kills (21), aces (3) and digs (4).
Despite missing the season's first 10 matches, Beck still managed to finish with 271 kills and a .314 hitting percentage, second only to Salmon's .324. The junior biology major led the team with 22 aces and also registered 62 digs and 54 blocks over the course of the season. Her 26 kills against VCU on Nov. 1 were a new career-high and likely helped her to earn a spot on the All-ACC team for the second consecutive season. The Winston-Salem native will look to carry her stellar momentum into the 2012 season as it kicks off in the fall.
The team leader in digs with 452, Thompson represented one of the strongest defenders for Wake Forest all season. The freshman from Roswell, Ga., recorded five performances with at least 20 digs, including a season-high 29 against Virginia Tech on Oct. 6. Besides her defensive presence, Thompson was also a consistent server for the Deacs, notching 11 aces on the year, one of five players to reach double-digits in that category.
Rosendall was placed into the starting lineup as Wake's setter in her very first collegiate match and performed very well in that position throughout the season, finishing with 1,104 assists. Like Salmon, she played a key role in upsetting Duke thanks to her 49 assists. She would go on to total 13 matches with 40 or more assists; her best outing of the year came against VCU when she notched 64. Rosendall, a native of Hudsonville, Mich., posted strong numbers in other categories as well. She was fourth on the squad with 193 digs and 53 total blocks and finished sixth overall with 95 kills.
Every ACC school except Florida State placed at least one representative on the team. Only Duke, with five, had more members than Wake Forest, which was part of a four-way tie for the second-most with Miami, NC State and Georgia Tech. Clemson had a trio, while Virginia, Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Boston College each had two representatives. Maryland's lone member rounded out the recipients.
