UCI’s Wilson comes away with two weekly honors

UC Irvine senior outside hitter Taylor Wilson was named the Sports Imports/American Volleyball Coaches Assn. Division I-II Men’s National Player of the Week as well as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Co-Player of the Week sharing the honor with Stanford’s Brad Lawson.

He was instrumental in two UC Irvine victories last week. The outside hitter began the week with a .500 hitting performance against Princeton, recording 12 kills and just one error in 22 swings. He also added three block assists and two digs.

Wilson ended the week with a season-high 17 kills and five block assists in the win over UCLA. After losing the first set to the Bruins, Wilson almost single-handedly evened the score at 1-1 with eight kills, an ace and four block assists while hitting .462 (8-3-12). He contributed to 11 of the Anteaters’ points as UCI collectively hit just .194 in the second set with no one else recording more than two kills.

For the week, Wilson averaged 4.14 kills, 4.86 points and 1.14 blocks.

This is Wilson’s second Sports Imports/AVCA Division I-II Men’s National Player of the Week honor, having also earned the distinction Jan. 28, 2008. It is also the 12th time an athlete from UC Irvine has grabbed the award.

UCI plays host to Stanford Friday at 7 p.m. at the Bren Events Center.

— From staff reports