Jehlarova earns third Pac-12 Defensive POW
SAN FRANCISCO - For the third time in Pac-12 play junior middle Magda Jehlarova has been named the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week as announced by the conference office Monday afternoon. The star middle is the first non-freshman Pac-12 player to earn three weekly awards on the year after also taking home the award Sept. 27 and Oct. 18. For her career, Jehlarova has earned eight weekly awards including six defensive honors.
In one of the best all-around weeks in WSU program history, Jehlarova led the Cougs to a weekend sweep of Arizona and Arizona State as WSU picked up its first season sweep of the two schools from the Copper State since 2016. Starting off the weekend with a bang, the Cougs dominated the Wildcats Friday night at Bohler Gym, sweeping Arizona for the second-straight contest on the year. With Jehlarova leading the defensive efforts at the net, the Cougs held Arizona to just .096 hitting in the match, the second-straight match the Cougs held their opponents under .100 hitting. In the match, Jehlarova had a hand in seven of the nine blocks for the Cougs to completely shutdown the Wildcats' attack.
Two days later, Jehlarova produced one of the finest individual performance of all-time to lead the Cougs to a 3-2 win over Arizona State, rallying from down two sets to reverse sweep the Sun Devils. In the match Jehlarova again came up big defensively for the Cougs as she posted nine blocks in the five-set match, her fourth time going 9+ blocks in Pac-12 play. Additionally, she moved into the program's all-time top-10 for total blocks with 382 while also moving into sole possession of fourth all-time in solo blocks with her 74th during the match.
While her defensive efforts earned her the weekly award it was her offense that really took center stage as the all-american finished the weekend with an epic line of 27-0-37 to hit an unprecedented .730 against the two Arizona schools. It was her ridiculous line against Arizona State that really turned heads as Jehlarova finished the match with 21 kills on just 25 attempts to hit .840 as a three-rotation player. Her .840 attacking percentage ranked as the third best percentage in Pac-12 history for a player with 20+ attempts and the best since 2006. Additionally, Jehlarova finished the match with the 18th greatest hitting percentage in NCAA history for a player with 20+ attempts while her performance ranked fifth all-time in volleyball history for a player who recorded 20+ kills in a match.
Jehlarova and the Cougs are back in action Thursday, Nov. 11 in Berkeley, Calif. to take on Cal. The match is scheduled for 7 p.m. on the Pac-12 Network.