Samantha Bricio wins third consecutive Pac-12 honors


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Senior All-American outside hitter Samantha Bricio earned her third consecutive Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week honors for the week of Sept. 7-13 after her stellar play propelled the women’s volleyball team to an undefeated record and a newly minted No. 3 national ranking.

The Guadalajara, Mexico, native is just the second player in Pac-12 history to receive the award three times in a row in one season since Stanford’s Logan Tom did it in 2001. This is Bricio’s sixth all-time weekly conference award and USC’s 62nd all-time weekly honor.

This week, the Women of Troy played host to four teams at the Galen Center as part of the 2015 USC Classic tournament. Led by Bricio, USC swept Utah State, Pepperdine, Idaho State and New Mexico to push their record to a perfect 10-0 on the season.

Against the Aggies of Utah State, Bricio tied her own  career-high and the USC single-match record with eight service aces. Later that day, Bricio served up five more aces against Pepperdine to mark the 15th time in her career that she served five or more aces in the a match. She also hit at an impressive .404 clip in those four matches, tallying 67 kills to average 5.58 kills per set.

In the process, the Women of Troy collected their 29th straight set win with those four sweeps. Bricio was named tournament MVP for the eighth time in her career for a pre-conference tournament, and it was the 13th time she was chosen to be on an all-tournament team.

Furthermore, the senior moved up the record books for career kills after the USC Classic, surpassing three former Trojan legends, Katie Haller (ninth), Nancy Hillman (eighth) and April Ross (seventh), to now sit at sixth all-time in USC history with 1,586 career kills.

With the help of Bricio’s near unstoppable play this week, USC moved up three spots in the AVCA poll and now sits at No. 3 overall in the nation. It took just 10 games and three weeks for the Women of Troy to jump 19 spots from their preseason ranking of No. 22 overall.

Ahead of USC in the poll is   No. 1 Penn State, followed by   No. 2 Texas and rounding out the top five are Nebraska at No. 4 and Florida at No. 5 overall.

Around the Pac-12 conference, five more teams are ranked in this week’s AVCA poll, led by   No. 7 Washington, No. 8 Stanford and No. 10 Arizona State. Crosstown rival UCLA is ranked No. 14 overall and Oregon sits at No. 19 in the polls. Lastly, fellow conference member Colorado is also receiving votes.

Bricio and the Women of Troy will now prepare for their final week of non-conference play with a trip to Norman, Oklahoma, to partake in the Oklahoma Nike Invitational on Sept. 17-18.