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The top offensive player at an international tournament during the opening days of the offseason is now capping off the offseason with a college men’s volleyball national award.
Penn State outside attacker Brett Wildman during the weekend was selected as the 2019 Off the Block National Player of the Offseason.
The National Player of the Offseason recognizes the best individual performance from a current NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball player during the offseason at international tournaments and beach volleyball events. The winner of the award is determined through online voting on the Off the Block website with fans casting their votes from the pool of finalists that were selected by Off the Block.
Wildman received more than 2,750 votes and 48.05 percent of the total vote among the 13 finalists to win the national award.
Wildman led all players at the U21 Pan American Cup in May with 76 kills and earned the tournament’s Best Scorer award. Among his top performances included having both a match-high 20 kills and four aces as the U.S. Men’s Junior National Team lost to Chile in the quarterfinals.
The outside attacker also competed with the United States at the World University Games in July and had a team-high 12 kills in an opening-round victory against China.
Wildman entered offseason play after having a combined 46 kills on a .367 attack percentage in Penn State’s two conference tournament matches en route to making the EIVA All-Tournament Team. In addition, he ended his freshman season in the EIVA’s top 20 averaging 2.17 kills per game and helped the Nittany Lions advance within one game of a berth to the NCAA Tournament.
Of the 5,759 votes cast for the National Player of the Year, the EIVA had the top-two vote-getters.
Princeton opposite and middle attacker hybrid George Huhmann garnered 1,728 votes — 1,039 fewer votes than Wildman. Huhmann received 30.01 percent of the total and was the only other finalist besides Wildman to receive more than 10 percent of the vote..
This is the only offseason award presented in college men’s volleyball.
It also is one of three college men’s volleyball awards solely determined by the fans. Off the Block also presents the annual Fan Choice National Player of the Year and the National Player of the Month that are both decided via fan voting.
Off the Block is a national award winning website that was established in 2011 and is the nation’s leader in college men’s volleyball coverage.
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