Ashley Erickson Honoured as 2019-20 ACAC Female Athlete of the Year

Caronport, SK (April 27, 2020) – The Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) is pleased to announce Ashley Erickson of Briercrest College has been selected as the 2019-20 ACAC Female Player of the Year sponsored by Konica Minolta. 

Ashley led the ACAC South Division in assists per set, as she ran a very potent offence that averaged 11.23 kills per set. She was the Briercrest Women's Volleyball team's floor captain and led the team to a 1st place finish in the ACAC South with a 22-2 record, and #2 National Ranking in the CCAA.

She was named Female ACAC Athlete of the Week and was also CCAA Athlete of the Week in October. This season, Ashley became the ACAC All-Time Career Assists leader in October, passing the previous ACAC Player of the Year, Ray Sigurdson. Erickson ends her career as the ACAC All-Time leader with 3,727 regular-season assists. Ashley is also a great defender as she led all setters in the ACAC South Division with an average of 1.99 digs per set.

She also contributed in important ways with her serving and clever attacking on 2nd contact. She was tied for 3rd overall amongst ACAC setters in points per game, with 0.8 points/set. Her outstanding regular season resulted in her being named ACAC Player of the Year for Women's Volleyball. Her season was capped off with her setting a new ACAC single-match record for assists in a match in the ACAC Championship Gold Medal match as she had 62 assists to help lead her team to their second ACAC Championship in Ashley's 5-year career.

She was then named to the Conference Championship All-Star team. Ashley went on to be named a CCAA All-Canadian for the second year in a row, and was also honoured as the CCAA Player of the Year as the top player in the country for Women's Volleyball! At CCAA Nationals, she led her team to the program's first-ever CCAA National Semi-final appearance, since Briercrest joined the ACAC in 1995. 

Quote from Head Coach Nolan Weinmaster: 

"Ashley is first and foremost a tremendous person whose selfless leadership has set the culture of our team for the past 5 years. She puts her relationship with Jesus first, and, as she follows Him, she thrives in caring so much for others, encouraging others, and bringing the best out in her teammates, while giving the credit to God and others. Her whole career she has been making everyone around her better and giving our team the opportunity to succeed because of the often unnoticed, but incredibly important things she does so consistently well. Ash is such an outstanding athlete, and her disciplined hard work every season and off-season allows her to do so many difficult things on the court and make them look easy! She has been voted by her teammates to be the player who most demonstrates our team values on a daily basis for each season she has been a part of our program, which speaks so highly of her character and leadership by example. Because she is such a phenomenal leader by example, it's certainly no coincidence that our team has had the success of finishing in first place in the regular season and has won ACAC Silver twice and ACAC Gold twice in 4 of her 5 years as our starting setter!"

Other Info: Hometown: Waldheim, SK; 5th Year of eligibility; Program: Graduated with her BA Business this April

Other accomplishments (not mentioned above): 

• ACAC Rookie of the Year in 2015-16 & All-Star at 2015-16 ACAC Conference Championship

•  ACAC All-Conference in 2016-17 & 2017-18 & 2018-19 & 2019-20

• ACAC South Player of the Year & CCAA All-Canadian in 2018-19 & All-Star at 2018-19 ACAC Conference Championship. Ashley also led her team to ACAC Gold in 2015-16 and ACAC Silver in 2017-18 & 2018-19.