Pair of Trojans sweep Sun Belt Volleyball Awards

Published 7:50 am Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Troy Trojans Janelle Stuempfig and Tori Hester swept the Sun Belt Conference’s weekly volleyball awards after their stellar play this past weekend.

Hester earned Offensive Player of the Week, while Stuempfig captured Setter of the Week. In Troy’s conference sweep over Southern Miss last weekend, Stempfig tallied 101 assists in the two games including a career-high 63 assists on Saturday. The 63 assists is also the seventh most assists in a 5-set match in school history.

“Janelle had one of her best weekends of the season,” Troy Coach Josh Lauer said. “She has been working diligently each week to improve her decision making and help our offense be more efficient, so I’m happy her efforts were rewarded by our conference coaches.”

Sign up for our daily email newsletter

Get the latest news sent to your inbox

Hester is a returning All-Conference player and has continued her stellar play this season. She posted a school-record – and career-high – 36 kills in Saturday’s win over Southern Miss and tallied 50 total kills in the two contests. She broke the previous record by four kills. Hester also tallied five assists, three aces, 28 digs and four blocks in the two matches.

“Tori had an outstanding weekend,” Lauer said. “She took the match over on Saturday and turned in one of the best, if not the best, offensive performance in program history.”

Hester, Stuempfig and the rest of the Trojans will try to keep their conference-undefeated record going this weekend with a pair of road matches against Marshall on Oct. 6-7. Troy is currently tied for first place in the Sun Belt West with rival South Alabama as both schools are 4-0 in conference play. James Madison, Georgia Southern and Coastal Carolina in the East Division are the only other SBC teams with undefeated conference records.