Cazemier Named Heartland Player of the Week (10/11/05)

BILLINGS, MT – Montana State-Billings volleyball player Alicia Cazemier has been named the Heartland Conference hitter of the week.  The honor is Cazemier’s first of the season and the eighth total player of the week award for the Yellowjackets this season, their first in the Heartland Conference.

Cazemier, a sophomore middle blocker from Vauxhall, Alberta, Canada, led the road weary Yellowjackets to a pair of sweeps at Oklahoma Panhandle State last Monday and Tuesday.  MSU Billings—which played four conference road matches in the span of five days—improved to 6-2 in the Heartland and 17-4 overall with the sweeps of the Aggies.

Cazemier averaged 5.00 kills per game while hitting at a blistering .460 clip.  She needed just 50 attempts to total 30 kills in the two matches.  Cazemier also had six blocks over the six games.  For the season she currently ranks second in the Heartland Conference for hitting percentage (.398), third for kills per game (3.75), and first for blocks per game (1.22).  Although just a sophomore, last week Cazemier became just the sixth player in school history to eclipse 200 career blocks. 

The Yellowjackets are idle this week.  They return to Heartland Conference action October 21 and 22 when they travel to Austin to face defending league champion St. Edward’s University.  With MSU Billings currently sitting one spot ahead of St. Ed’s in the conference standings, next week’s two matches could determine which team qualifies for the conference championship tournament.  The Jackets’ next home match is October 26 against Rocky Mountain College.