COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – San Diego State sophomore Taylor Underwood earned all-Mountain West honors on Wednesday, as the league announced its 2023 postseason awards in advance of the MW Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The conference's 11 head coaches voted for the 18-player all-conference team encompassing the MW schedule only, with six additional nominees earning honorable mention.
In her first year on The Mesa after transferring from DePaul, Underwood finished sixth in the Mountain West with 3.38 kills and 3.88 points per set against conference foes during the regular season. The Norco, California, native compiled double-digit kill totals in 16 of 18 MW matches and led the Aztecs with 20 service aces (0.28/set) vs. league opponents.
In a home clash against Air Force on Oct. 5, Underwood (.481) blasted a career-high 31 kills, which marked the second-highest figure in the conference this season. Additionally, the Aztec opposite hitter set a school record for put-aways in the rally scoring era (since 2001) and logged the highest kill total by an SDSU player since Martina Vitkova-Engels (37) and Carrie Mapes (33) combined for 70 non-returnables in the Aztecs' five-set triumph over Wyoming in the first round of the Western Athletic Conference tournament during the sideout era on Nov. 25, 1997.
For all matches, Underwood led the Aztecs with 3.12 kills per set, surpassing the double-digit plateau in that statistic in 20 of 29 contests. She also ranked sixth in the MW with an average of 0.35 services per set (37 overall) during the regular season.
Earlier in the year, Underwood served up a career-high five aces in a pair of victories over Denver (Sept. 8) and Eastern Washington (Sept. 16), which was tied for the sixth-best output in the conference this season. She was one of just three players to appear in all 107 sets for the Scarlet and Black this year,
With Underwood's selection, San Diego State has had at least one all-Mountain West honoree for the ninth straight season.
Taylor Underwood Earns All-MW Honors
