The Berry volleyball team that won the Southern Athletic Association Championship last weekend and begins the NCAA Division III Championship tournament on Thursday, added to its list of SAA laurels Wednesday when the Vikings swept the conference's top postseason honors and landed seven players on the All-SAA team.
 
                Junior setter Emily Rapach was selected as the SAA Player of the Year, senior libero Laura Beier was the SAA Defensive Player of the year for the fourth straight season, freshman middle blocker Cypress Guenther was the SAA Newcomer of the Year and head coach Caitlyn Moriarty was the SAA Coach of the Year.
 
                Joining Rapach and Beier as All-SAA First Team selections were three more Vikings – junior right-side hitter Molly Bergin, junior outside hitter Peyton Breissinger, and sophomore outside hitter and conference tournament MVP Jazzy Innis.

                Guenther was named to the All-SAA Second Team and sophomore middle blocker Olivia Mallow was an Honorable Mention All-Conference selection.

                Rapach garnered her first SAA Player of the Year award and led the conference in several categories. She finished top in the league with 10.13 assists per set and 49 service aces. Her performance as the best setter in the league facilitated the best attack in the SAA, as the Vikings finished first in the league in kills, hitting percentage, assists and service aces. The Vikings rank 8th in nation in hitting percentage. 

                Beier is not a stranger to the SAA Defensive Player of the Year award. She's won it every year she's been on campus, with this marking the fourth time the senior libero has earned the honor. She outpaced the rest of the SAA defensively by a staggering margin, racking up 6.22 digs per set and 622 total digs. The former mark led the league by around a dig-and-a-half per set while the latter by around 150 digs. 

                Guenther enjoyed an outstanding freshman campaign for the league champion Vikings. She led the league in hitting percentage with a .394 mark for the season and also put herself on the leaderboard in blocks. The first-year middle hitter tallied 73 total blocks and 0.92 blocks per set, the latter mark putting her in the league's top five and the former in the SAA's top 10.

                Moriarty wins SAA Coach of the Year honors for the third time in her career. Her Vikings proved to be the best team in the conference and one of the best in the nation over the course of the season, rolling off a 25-2 overall record and a 13-1 mark in conference play. Her team led the conference in hitting percentage, assists, kills, service aces, opponent hitting percentage, opponent digs, opponent blocks, opponent kills and opponent assists. Their 13-1 mark earned them the SAA regular season title, and then they swept to their sixth SAA championship by winning nine of 10 sets at the SAA Tournament.
 
                The No. 12-ranked Vikings will open the NCAA Division III Championship tournament taking on Transylvania University at 3 p.m. Thursday in Atlanta at Emory, which is hosting the Atlanta Regional.

                Berry is riding a 10-game win streak that has included straight-set wins over No. 13 Emory, which defeated the Vikings in five sets at Berry, and rival Birmingham-Southern – Berry's only other regular-season loss came to the Panthers – in the SAA Championship on Sunday.

                Earning spots on the SAA All-Tournament team were Beier, Breissinger and Innis, while Rapach recorded her 2,000^th career assist in the championship match.

                "The team is very hungry and confident right now," Moriarty said. "I was proud of their energy and mental toughness during the SAA tournament—they embraced the target on their backs and instilled trust and confidence in one another.

                "The SAA tournament is great preparation for the strong competition we will face at the NCAA tournament this weekend," the coach added. "These are the opportunities we work so hard for. I'm inspired by our team's will and focus right now—I can't wait for Thursday's match"

                In the other regional openers Thursday at Emory, No. 14 Southwestern (Texas) and Washington & Lee play at 12:30 p.m., Christopher Newport and Texas-Dallas meet at 5:30 p.m., and Emory plays Southern Virginia at 8 p.m.

                The winners of the first two matches return to the court Friday playing at 4:30 p.m., and at 7 p.m. on Friday the winners of the second pair of openers play at 7 p.m. The regional championship will be decided on Saturday at 7 p.m., with that winner advancing to the final three rounds that takes place Nov. 18-20 in St. Louis, Mo.