Dec. 15, 2004

LONG BEACH, Calif. - For the first time in program history, multiple University of Dayton volleyball players were honored by the American Volleyball Coaches Association as Honorable Mention All-Americans on Wednesday. Senior Christy Utnage and sophomore Faye Barhorst were named honorable mention All-Americans by an eight-member committee comprised of Division I head coaches.

Utnage (Indianapolis, IN) also won the 2004 Atlantic 10 Player of the Year and Championship Most Outstanding Player awards while being named to the All-Conference and Academic All-Conference Teams as well as earning ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Third Team honors. This season, she had the third most attack attempts in Dayton history (1,424) and the fifth most kills (496) while winning A-10 Player of the Week honors twice. She ranked second in the conference in kills as well as seventh in digs and ninth in service aces this season.

Utnage closed out her collegiate career with 1,191 digs and 1,115 kills to rank fifth and eighth respectively in those categories and become just the fifth player in UD history to surpass 1,000 in each category. She is also tied for fourth in school history with 3,372 attack attempts and eighth with 152 service aces.

Barhorst (Fort Loramie, OH) earned her first Honorable Mention All-America honor after being named the AVCA Northeast Regional Freshman of the Year last season. The four time A-10 Player of the Week was named to the All-Conference and All-Championship Teams this season as the Flyers earned their second straight A-10 Championship. During the year, she was one of just two players from the A-10 to record 30 kills in a match on Nov. 12 at George Washington and broke the NCAA record for single-match hitting percentage when she recorded an .800 mark at La Salle on Oct. 9.

Barhorst finished the season tied for the second best single-season hitting percentage (.377) in program history as well as the fourth most solo blocks (46), the sixth most block assists (113) and the sixth most kills (480). She led the A-10 in blocks and hitting percentage while ranking third in kills this year.

With two years remaining in her collegiate career, Barhorst holds the school record for hitting percentage (.353) and ranks fourth in solo blocks (86) and sixth in block assists (253). She also ranks 27th nationally in both blocks per game and hitting percentage.

Ten different Flyers have won a total of 15 All-Region Awards since 1977 including two winners in each of the last four years. Dayton has also had total of four All-Americans in the program's history as Utnage and Barhorst joined Ann Meyers as a First Team selection in 1979 and Erin Treadway as an Honorable Mention in 2003.