By Olivia Dowell, media relations intern
Playing its second season in a calendar year, the 2021 Sun Devil Volleyball season carried a lot of momentum and experience from the prior season. With three ranked wins and 11 five-set matches, Arizona State gained even more experience for a team that graduated just one senior.
Team Accomplishments
In the fifth year under head coach Sanja Tomasevic, Sun Devil Volleyball went 14-17 (7-13 Pac-12), including competition against non-conference opponents for the first time since 2019 after only facing Pac-12 opponents in the spring 2020-21 season. The team finished in ninth in the conference. Additionally, ASU played in 11 five-set matches this season, tied for second most in a season with the 2019 season. ASU also finished in first in the conference in total digs and had the second-highest total number of double-doubles since 2001 with 38 this season.
Arizona State earned three wins over ranked opponents, all against Pac-12 teams during a five-match winning streak. ASU picked up its first ranked win of the season on Oct. 17 in a reverse sweep over UCLA, who advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The next weekend, the Sun Devils upset No. 16 Utah in Salt Lake City for back-to-back ranked wins, the first time ASU has done so since 2015. Finally, Arizona State took down No. 18 Stanford on Oct. 31 in Tempe. Both of those teams advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. On the Sun Devils’ schedule, 11 teams made it to the NCAA Tournament with ASU earning wins against four of them.
Also throughout the five match winning streak from Oct. 17 through Nov. 5, the Sun Devils picked up their first road sweep since 2019 in the upset over Utah and a win over Colorado. Other highlights of the season include sweeping Cal for the second season in a row, as well as sweeping the season series against Colorado for the first time since 2011 when the Buffaloes first joined the Pac-12.
Player Awards
The Sun Devils received two Pac-12 weekly awards and an AVCA award this season for two players. Freshman Geli Cyr earned Pac-12 Freshman of the Week on Nov. 15 and junior Iman Isanovic earned Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week honors on Oct. 25 and then was named Sports Imports/AVCA National Player of the Week that same week.
Isanovic also earned end-of-season conference honors as she was named to the All-Pac-12 Team. Sophomore Marta Levinska received an honorable mention to the All-Pac-12 team, making this the first season since 2015 that Arizona State received two all-conference honors.
In addition to those awards, Isanovic also earned academic awards for her strong work in the classroom. After getting her second academic all-district nod, she was named to the 2021 CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team. She is the first from Sun Devil Volleyball to earn this honor since 2000.
Individual Standouts
Isanovic led the team in kills (490), service aces (34) and solo blocks (20) for the second season in a row. With 490 total kills this season, she is 10th for total kills in a single season in program history. At the end of the regular season, she ranked fifth in the country for total attacks, 13th for total kills and 14th in total points. She had a career-high 28 kills on Nov. 7 against WSU, good for sixth all-time in individual rally-scoring records.
Three additional Sun Devils reached triple figures in kills this season. Levinska was second with 359 and had 24 matches reaching double digits in kills. She was second in aces behind Isanovic with 31 and served six aces in a win over Pacific on Sept. 16, which was the 10th-highest total in program history for a single match.
Sophomore middle blocker Claire Jeter was another with triple figures, reaching 261 kills. She also led the team with a .337 hitting percentage. Additionally, she was first in total blocks with 115, the only Sun Devil to reach triple figures in that category. The last Sun Devil to reach triple digits in kills was Cyr with 135.
Dishing out 1,029 assists this season, sophomore setter Ella Snyder had the most assists in a single season since 2016. Additionally, Snyder is tied 10th in the amount of double-doubles in a single season in the rally-scoring era for the Sun Devils with 13 and also is 10th overall in the amount of matches reaching 40 or more assists for the program where she had 10.
On defense for the Sun Devils, junior Annika Larson was the primary libero where she led the team with 373 digs. She had six matches reaching 20 or more digs and reached double figures in digs in 17 matches.
