Harrison Claims Accolades

After pacing the University of Tennessee volleyball team to its fifth consecutive victory over Kentucky to help it close out the 2010 regular season with an impressive 24-6 overall record, redshirt sophomore DeeDee Harrison has been named the Lady Vol Athlete of the Week for the second time in her career.
A product of Hillsboro High School in Nashville, Harrison posted a dominating performance in UT’s sweep over the Wildcats on Wednesday in Lexington, blasting out a team-high 11 kills at a scalding .529 clip with just two errors on 17 swings. She also added a pair of blocks for good measure. The award is her second this month, as she claimed the honors for the first time on Nov. 8.
A 6-3 middle blocker, Harrison has now hit over .500 in seven different matches this year and has crossed the .400 plateau on 12 occasions. For the season, she is hitting .314, good for second on the team and 10th in the Southeastern Conference. With 220 kills during her sophomore campaign, Harrison stands as one of four Lady Vols to tally more than 200 putaways and one of six with over 150.
Her efforts helped the Big Orange finish the regular season with the second-highest team hitting percentage and most kills per set and assists per set in the SEC. UT also ranks 10th in the nation in kills per set, 13th in assists per set and 15th in hitting percentage. The victory over UK was Tennessee’s 15th league triumph of the year which ranks as the second-most in school history behind only the 16 wins it racked up last season.
Also nominated was junior forward Glory Johnson from the Lady Vol basketball team. The Knoxville native averaged a double-double with 11.7 points/game and 13.0 rebounds/game to lead Tennessee to a 2-1 record at the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
She was named to the all-tournament team after having back-to-back double-doubles to end the tournament, tallying 13 point and 12 boards in a loss to Georgetown, a day after grabbing a career-high 18 rebounds and scoring 15 points in a win over Georgia Tech.
On the season, the 6-3 junior is averaging 9.4 ppg and a team-best 10.6 rpg through seven games – putting her on track to become the first Lady Vol since Patricia Roberts in 1976-77 to average double figures in rebounds for a season.
Harrison and the Lady Vols will enter the 2010 NCAA Tournament this week with the highest national seed in school history at No. 11The Big Orange will travel to Bloomington, Ind., for the first and second rounds of the tournament which will be held at University Gymnasium, Dec. 3-4.
Tennessee (24-6) will open the tournament against Alabama A&M (16-10) on Friday before Miami (Fla.) (23-8) squares off against Indiana (21-11). The winner of both contests will advance to a second-round showdown on Saturday night for the right to move on to the NCAA Regional in Dayton, Ohio, Dec. 10-11.