McHenry Wins a Pair of National Awards

Off the Block announced that a nationwide voting committee has selected UCLA middle blocker Merrick McHenry as the winner of the 2024 Ryan Millar Award as the nation's top middle attacker and of the 2024 Dain Blanton Diversity Award which recognizes the top NCAA Division I-II men's volleyball player during the regular season of a minority ethnicity.

This is the second straight year McHenry has been chosen as the winner of the Ryan Millar Award, which is named after the former BYU All-American and U.S. Olympian. The redshirt senior was named a first-team AVCA All-America and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Player of the Year. McHenry was also chosen for the 2024 NCAA Championship All-Tournament team after helping lead UCLA to its second consecutive NCAA title. During the season, he broke Garrett Muagututia's school career record total of 44 block solos in a regular season contest against Long Beach.

McHenry also set a school record with his .585 hitting percentage for the 2024 season and with his career attack percentage mark of .519. He led the MPSF in hitting percentage and hit at least .400 in 28 matches during the season. McHenry posted double-digit kills in nine contests with a high of 14 in matches against Grand Canyon and at BYU. He had multiple aces in 11 matches with a high of three in battles against Grand Canyon, Stanford, USC, Loyola-Chicago and Grand Canyon. McHenry totaled 14 matches with at least 4.0 blocks and ranked 11th in NCAA in blocking average (0.99).

The voting committee for the Ryan Millar Award was comprised of more than 20 college men's volleyball head coaches and volleyball reporters from around the nation. This is the ninth year that Off the Block has presented the Ryan Millar Award. UCLA's Daenan Gyimah won the award following the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons.

The Dain Blanton Diversity Award, which is named after the former Pepperdine All-American and U.S. Olympian, recognizes the top NCAA Division I-II men's volleyball player during the regular season of a minority ethnicity. This is the only national award in college men's volleyball created specifically to celebrate the outstanding individual performances of minority players. UCLA's Daenan Gyimah was the 2019 winner of the award.