ROCK HILL, S.C. – Senior outside hitter Molly Locke (College Grove, Tenn.) earned her third Astroturf South Atlantic Conference Player of the Week honor on the season the league announced Tuesday. Locke is the only player in the conference to earn a Player of the Week honor three times this season.
It is the second straight year that a Carson-Newman player has won three weekly plaudits in a season as Rachel Harper won thrice in 2014.
"I think it just shows that our team worked really hard together," Locke said. "At the beginning of the year we had goals that we wrote down, personal and team goals. It's really cool to see that at the end of the year it's paid off. The hard work has paid off for our personal goals and team goals."
The Eagles went 3-0 last week after dropping a pair of matches the week before as Locke piled up 41 kills and 47 digs with a pair of double-doubles. The week began with a sweep of Tusculum as she had 13 kills on a .243 attack percentage and eight digs. In a four-set victory at Newberry, Locke had a match-high with 14 kills and 20 digs. On Saturday the senior notched a double-double for the fourth time in five matches with 14 kills and 19 digs.
"I think it shows a lot about our team," Locke said. "It fuels our fire with any good team or any good athlete. Losing shows what we did wrong and what we can do better. We just want to prove to people and prove to ourselves that we are one of the best teams in this conference."
Locke has a team-leading 13 double-doubles this season and leads the SAC with 352 total kills and is second in total points with 404.5 on the year. The College Grove, Tenn. native is 12th with 30 service aces and 15th with 318 total digs.
The Eagles have taken home six of the 10 Player of the Week accolades this year twice as many as the next-highest total set by Wingate.
Carson-Newman will host its senior day Saturday at noon when Mars Hill comes to Mossy Creek for the final regular season match of the season. Video of the event can be seen by visiting cneagles.com/live for the final home game of the year at Holt Fieldhouse.
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