MARTIN TABS ANOTHER PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD IN ALL-MOUNTAIN WEST LIST
The Rebels pick up three different All-Mountain West Team honors on Wednesday, all three honorees reappearing on the 2023 list after picking up the awards in 2022.
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Following the conclusion of the 2023 regular season and prior to starting the conference tournament, the Mountain West announced their All-Mountain West Teams on Wednesday along with their yearly major awards. Isabel Martin highlighted the news with picking up the league’s Co-Player of the Year honor for the second-consecutive season, also making the All-Mountain West First Team as Jordyn Freeman and Gabrielle Arretche-Ramos garnered Honorable Mention nods. Martin gets her Co-Player honor alongside Paige Bartsch from Boise State.
Martin put together an even stronger season than 2022 on the offensive side of the net, surpassing last season’s totals in kills, hitting percentage, service aces and points all within less matches played. Tallying 475 kills in 2023 up to this point, she tied the single-game record in the program’s thrilling five-set victory over Colorado State with 34 in a single match. She’s recorded a hitting rate of .294 so close out the regular season, bettering her previous year by .026 with a second-straight 1,000+ total attack season. Her 36 service aces in 2023 leads the team as one of three student-athletes over 30 on the season, providing value in all six spots on the rotation with her 222 digs in the back row. Martin becomes the second UNLV volleyball student-athlete to pick up the Mountain West Player of the year award, Mariena Hayden repeating back in the 2021 spring and fall seasons.
Freeman tallies her second career All-Mountain West award, repeating on the Honorable Mention team. Earning the conference’s Defensive Player of the Week back in October, the redshirt senior notched her second season of 100 or more block assists in 2023, picking up 105 alongside her 11 solo blocks. She’s also continued to push up her career hitting percentage (now .332), the middle blocker posting a .335 rate in 2023 with her season-high 177 kills in the 29 matches she’s appeared in this season. The redshirt senior notched a double-double earlier this season in kills-blocks for UNLV, totaling 11 kills and 10 total blocks (nine assisted, one solo), in the Rebels’ 3-1 win over New Mexico to nail a career-high in single-game blocks.
Arretche-Ramos appears in the Honorable Mention list after a strong 2023 regular-season campaign, recording over 300 kills in 754 total attacks for the Rebels. The senior tallied 17 different matches this season with double-digit kills, including eight in the program’s final nine games of the regular season, hitting a percentage of .271 during that stretch. The Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., native also nailed some milestones in the 2023 season, recording over 2,000 career attacks and over 100 block assists while inching closer to 1,000 career points (currently 976).
The Rebels will aim to celebrate their recent honors throughout the Mountain West Championship Tournament during the Thanksgiving holiday, earning the third-seed in the tournament. The championships are set on UNLV’s home court in Cox Pavilion, taking place from Wednesday, Nov. 22 through Friday, Nov. 24. The bracket will kick off later today, the Rebels taking on the sixth-seeded New Mexico Lobos in the quarterfinal round on Wednesday at 4 p.m. PT
