April 19, 2017

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association announced its 10-woman All-Academic team for beach volleyball Wednesday afternoon. The No. 12 South Carolina Gamecocks saw two members of the program make the team: junior Julia Mannisto and graduate student Katie Zimmerman.

Julia Mannisto reached 20 wins in a season for the first time in her career, amassing a 20-7 overall mark spending time between the 3s and 4s pairs during the regular season. Of those 20 wins, four came against AVCA Top 15 teams: No. 11 FIU, No. 11 Grand Canyon, No. 9 Georgia State and No. 13 FIU. Individually, Julia leads the team with 1.22 aces per set and also averages 4.11 kills and 5.52 assists per set. She holds a 3.6 GPA as a finance major, and is a 2015 SEC and 2016 CCSA Academic Honor Roll member.

Katie Zimmerman closed out the 2017 regular season with an 11-1 record in the month of April, pushing her season record to 20-8. The graduate student spent the majority of the season at the ones and twos pairings before settling in to the threes to end the year. She has four wins over AVCA Top-15 opponents so far: beating FIU twice, and No. 14 FAU and No. 10 Georgia State. Individually, Zimmerman is hitting .383 with 5.68 kills, and led the team with 375 assists (5.95 per set). As she finishes her master’s degree in exercise science, Katie carries a 3.94 GPA and was on the CCSA Academic Honor Roll in 2016.

Both Gamecocks will be front and center in the lineup this coming weekend, as South Carolina prepares for the CCSA postseason tournament. The three-day event begins with two days of pool play duals Friday and Saturday, with four teams with the best records after that pairing up in a bracket on Sunday to determine the conference champion.