Moving on! Things are definitely still in transition at Tennessee, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the good stuff happening and look to the future! Here are a few of the items in the news over the past few months that I didn’t get to while I was working on the transfer article.

• Leslie Cikra, Ellen Mullins, and Mary Pollmiller attended USA Volleyball’s Open Tryout for the National Team and the Women’s A2 Program. The A2 team (for players with collegiate eligibility remaining) should be announced very soon. But until then we do know Cikra has already been invited to train for a few weeks with the national team after graduation!
• Jasmine Brown was Tennessee’s female finalist for the SEC’s H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Award. Check out her résumé here.
• The team averaged a 3.30 grade point average in the fall semester, with Kayla Jeter and Megan Hatcher both posting a perfect 4.0.
• Congratulations to the school record 12 Lady Vols who were named to the SEC Fall Academic Honor Roll! Assuming my counting isn’t off, UT tied Alabama in 2000, LSU in 2000 & 2002, and South Carolina in 2009 for most volleyball players on the SEC Honor Roll in a single year. The Lady Vols have placed at least 8 players on the honor roll the last four seasons. And Tennessee is the only team in the conference to have at least 5 players on the list every year since 1996. This year’s honorees are: Tiffany Baker, Nikki Brice, Jasmine Brown, Leslie Cikra, DeeDee Harrison, Whitney Heeres, Kayla Jeter, Ellen Mullins, Mary Pollmiller, Kelsey Robinson, Stephanie Stoll, and Mercedes Vaughn.
• Volunteer assistant coach Russ Friedland has been hired as an assistant at UNLV.
• Recruits Raina Hembry, Jamie Lea, and Ashley Mariani were named to Volleyball Magazine’s Fab 50 list.
• With a 4.1 GPA, recruit Bridgette Villano was named to the PrepVoleyball Academic All-American Highest Honorable Mention list.
• Spring practice is in full swing. The team has scrimmaged with several other squads including ETSU, Appalachian State, UNC-Asheville, and Western Carolina. The Daily Beacon has details. And UT has posted a video update with coach Rob Patrick and Ellen Mullins.
• Former Lady Vol Kelsey Robinson is just as awesome on the court in Lincoln as she was in Knoxville. She also picked up her first collegiate sand victory.
• You can catch a glimpse of Tiffany Baker in a different shade of orange in this video of Texas hanging their national championship banner from the rafters.