Debell and Leon Named to C-USA All-Preseason Team

DALLAS – Marshall volleyball placed graduate students Ciara Debell and Destiny Leon on the Conference USA All-Preseason Team, the league office announced Tuesday. The Thundering Herd were also picked to finish third in the East Division.

The Preseason team and polls were voted on by the league's 14 head coaches. WKU and Rice led the way with three selections each on the Preseason Team. The Herd was next with two. Charlotte, North Texas, UAB and UTEP were represented by one player each.

"I am so happy for Ciara and Destiny," third-year head coach Ari Aganus said. "They've worked hard in their careers to get acknowledgement like this from our conference. They're leaders both on and off the court, and have stepped up tremendously this fall. I'm so excited to see what's in store for them during their last season."

Teams will once again play just the opponents within its own division, and two matches each time. Marshall begins conference play at No. 16 WKU – the favorite in the east – on Sept. 24 and 25. The other road league matches will be at Florida Atlantic (Oct. 8-9) and at Charlotte (Oct. 22-23). The Herd will play at home against Middle Tennessee (Oct. 1-2), Old Dominion (Oct. 15-16) and FIU (Nov. 5-6).

The top four teams from each division will advance to the Conference USA Tournament, Nov. 19-21, in Norfolk, Va., hosted by Old Dominion.

Both Debell and Leon, along with Sydney Lostumo, opted to use the COVID year and come back for another season.

Debell was named First Team All-C-USA following the 2020-21 season as well as an AVCA All-South Region selection. She played in all 15 matches in the spring and surpassed not only 1,000 kills in her collegiate career, but 1,000 kills in her Marshall career as well. The Ocala, Fla., native came to the Herd in 2018 with 86 kills from her time at Florida Gulf Coast. Debell now has 1,146 in her collegiate career and 1,060 at Marshall, good for 10th all-time in program history. She is also second all-time at Marshall in kills per set (4.06) trailing only Herd Hall of Famer Kelly Anne-Billingy (2004-07). This past spring, Debell led Marshall with 201 kills, 3.53 per set and was second in digs with 171. She also applies pressure at the net defensively, chipping in with 27 blocks good for third on the team.

In the spring, Leon became the first Marshall player honored as the C-USA Defensive Player of the Year. She was also named Second Team All-C-USA. She has been a force at the net since the start of the 2019 season, coach Aganus' first year at the helm. After recording just nine blocks in her first year in Huntington in 2018, Leon has tallied 195 total blocks, an average of 1.28 per set. In the spring of 2021 she led the Herd with 65 total blocks, 1.25 per set, which also led the league and was ranked 42nd in the NCAA. Leon became just the fourth player in Marshall history (since 1988) to average 1.00 or more blocks per set in a single season twice, and is the first to do it back-to-back. She recorded her 200th career block in the spring. On the offensive side, Leon tallied 97 kills with a hitting percentage of .330.

Marshall has been to the C-USA Tournament in both seasons under coach Aganus, and the Herd returns a very experienced lineup with a great mix of seven newcomers with two junior college transfers and five freshmen. Along with the three graduate students, the other players back for Marshall who spent time on the court last year are the 2020-21 C-USA Libero of the Year Sarah Schank, Macy McElhaney, Olivia Fogo, Anna Calcagno, Riley Winslow, Megan Taylor and Zoie Holley.

Preseason Team:
Emani' Foster, Charlotte
Ciara Debell, Marshall
Destiny Leon, Marshall
Rhett Robinson, North Texas
Anota Adekunle, Rice
Carly Graham, Rice
Nicole Lennon, Rice
Fernanda Maida, UAB
Serena Patterson, UTEP
Paige Briggs, WKU
Nadia Dieudonne, WKU
Lauren Matthews, WKU

Preseason Player of the Year: Nicole Lennon, Rice

C-USA 2021 Volleyball Preseason Poll:
EAST
1. WKU (5)
2. Charlotte (1)
3. Marshall
4. Middle Tennessee
5. Old Dominion
6. Florida Atlantic
7. FIU (1)

WEST
1. Rice (7)
2. UTEP
3. North Texas
4. UAB
5. UTSA
6. Southern Miss
7. Louisiana Tech
(Divisional first-place votes in parenthesis)

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Debell and Leon Named to C-USA All-Preseason Team

Players Mentioned

Anna Calcagno

Ciara DeBell

Olivia Fogo

Zoie Holley

Destiny Leon

Sydney Lostumo

Macy McElhaney

Sarah Schank

Megan Taylor

Riley Winslow

Marshall University Athletics