Bria Beale, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii (UH) at Hilo, will continue in the running for the 2021 NCAA Women of the Year.
An outside hitter on the Vulcans volleyball team, she has climbed to the Top 30 candidate list and is in the Top 10 for Division II for this prestigious award.
"It feels amazing, obviously. It is such an amazing accomplishment. I'm very proud of myself. I'm also very grateful for the opportunity and the challenges that have led me to be able to receive this kind of recognition. This accomplishment feels like all the work I've put in -- pretty much my whole life, playing volleyball since I was very young and being a very diligent student from a young age -- has helped me get to this point," Beale said in a YouTube interview.
According to the Official Athletics Site of Hawaii at Hilo, Beale is a native of Southern California, and she transferred to UH at Hilo from the University of California Irvine in 2018. She graduated this past spring with a BA in communications, a minor in sociology and an undergraduate certificate in agriculture. She's currently pursuing a graduate degree in counseling psychology.
For her exemplary performance against Hawaii Pacific and Chaminade, Beale was also recently named PacWest Player of the Week.
Beale is a three-time All-PacWest Conference selection, First Team All-West Region selection, and she was named UH Hilo's 2021 Female Athlete of the Year.
"Many student-athletes excel in academics or athletics," head women's volleyball coach Chris Leonard said, according to the UH website. "Bria is one of the few that I have had the privilege of working with that is truly elite as a student and as an athlete."