Long Beach State University Athletics
TJ DeFalco Collects 2017 Karch Kiraly Award
4/26/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
Off the Block Release
LONG BEACH, Calif. -TJ DeFalco continues to add to his already impressive list of accolades as the sophomore outside hitter collected the 2017 Karch Kiraly Award, which is presented to the nation's best outside attacker. The announcement was made by Off the Block on Wednesday afternoon.
DeFalco earns the honors after finishing the regular season with an average of 4.10 kills per set to rank sixth in the nation and his .400 attack percentage ranks him among the nation's top 10.
The product out of Huntington Beach, Calif., registered double-figure kills in all but two regular season matches as he led Long Beach State in kills (407), points (476.0) and service aces (30).
DeFalco has been an integral part of the Beach men's volleyball program posting a season-high 25 kills on .340 hitting to go along with 14 digs for a double-double in a crucial match at BYU.
He also totaled 34 kills and 18 digs in the MPSF Tournament en route to being named Tournament MVP and helping LBSU capture its first-ever MPSF Championship as the Beach earned an NCAA Tournament berth for the second straight year.
The MPSF Player of the Year garnered a total of 52 votes to beat runner-up Nicolas Szerszen from Ohio State by eight votes.
The Karch Kiraly Award is named after the former UCLA All-American and U.S. Olympian and is presented to the nation's best outside attacker in NCAA Division I-II men's volleyball during the regular season.
Karch Kiraly Award (Voting Results)
1 TJ DeFalco, Long Beach State - 52 votes
2 Nicolas Szerszen, Ohio State - 44 votes
3 Jake Langlois, BYU - 13 votes
4 Jabarry Goodridge, NJIT - 9 votes
5 Lucas Yoder, USC - 5 votes
6 Matt Szews, Ball State - 2 votes
T7 Jacob Delson, UC Santa Barbara - 1 vote
T7 Tamir Hershko, UC Irvine - 1 vote
