AVCA Release

LEXINGTON, Ky. –  The 2024 Gustavus Adolphus volleyball team earned its 12th American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award when the organization announced its annual academic honors on Monday, July 21. 

To be eligible, teams must maintain a year-long grade-point average of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale (or 4.1 on a 5.0 scale). The honor is the ninth-consecutive for the Gusties, who have earned it each season since 2016. The team additionally received AVCA Honor Roll status (top 20 percent GPA in NCAA Division III) in 2020 and 2022. Albion College (Mich.) won the innaugural Team Academic Champion award with the highest team GPA in DIII. A total of 1,450 collegiate and high school volleyball teams were honored by the AVCA Monday.

Earlier this season, nine Gustie volleyball players achieved All-MIAC Academic status, while graduating seniors Peyton Auseth (Chaska, Minn.), Lauren Klaith (Rockford, Minn.), Brynn Smith (Brooklyn Park, Minn./Totino-Grace) and Kasie Tweet (Adrian, Minn.) were selected to the 2024 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team. Tweet, a nursing major with a 3.95 GPA, was honored as a second team Academic All-American® by CSC in January. The Adrian native won a total of 29 awards over her five-year career and appears in the Gustavus record book 10 times. She became the second player in program history, and third in the MIAC, to be named AVCA Regional Player of the Year, joining Nora Holtan '19 and Saint Benedict's Hunter Weiss. Tweet is just the third player in conference history to win four MIAC Athlete of the Week honors in one season, and the first since 2016, joining Holtan and St. Thomas' Katie Reynolds. She was also the second in MIAC history to be named AVCA National Player of the Week twice. Tweet earned the volleyball program's sixth Academic All-America honor, joining sisters Nora and Kate '21 Holtan as two-time recipients.

The Gusties finished the season 20-10 overall and 11-0 in the MIAC, becoming the first conference school to compile three consecutive undefeated league records. The 2024 MIAC Regular Season Champions were upset in the second round of the conference playoffs by Saint Benedict, and were passed up for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.