USC Aiken volleyball has two all-conference honorees
Nov. 17—USC Aiken volleyball standouts Gyöngyvér Araczki and Kari Mercer picked up all-Peach Belt Conference honors, as announced by the league office Thursday evening.
Both student-athletes earned second-team accolades.
Araczki, a junior middle blocker from Bekescaba, Hungary, led the PBC in hitting percentage with a .356 average. On the year, she posted 169 kills in 348 attacks in 73 sets. Araczki was 10th in the league with 2.32 kills per set. She accounted for 2.99 points per set, which put her ninth in the conference.
In the regular-season finale, Araczki slammed home a season-best 16 kills while hitting .560 in the sweep of Georgia College & State. Araczki also hit over .500 (with at least 10 attempts) in wins over Montevallo (.667), Georgia College & State (.538), Carson-Newman (.588), Emmanuel (.588) and Flagler (.538). Araczki tallied a season-best five blocks in the wins over the Saints and Eagles.
Mercer, a graduate student from Hilliard, Ohio, picked up all-PBC honors for the fourth time in her illustrious career. She led the PBC with 5.48 digs/set in 92 frames. Mercer accounted for 504 on the year. The All-American and two-time all-region standout posted double-digit efforts in 24 matches. She tallied at least 20 digs 14 times, including a season-best 32 at Lenoir-Rhyne.
The fifth-year standout garnered PBC Libero of the Year honors twice during her career. In 2021, she was tabbed a D2CCA third-team All-American. Last season, Mercer recorded CSC third-team Academic All-America accolades, becoming the first USC Aiken volleyball student-athlete to ever pick up All-America honors on the court and in the classroom. Her 2,367 digs put her second in USC Aiken's overall career digs category and third in the PBC's rally-scoring era.
