A sophomore at the Shaw University in North Carolina, Lolia Kienka became the top player this year and led her university to win the conference without losing a match. She was awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) for the conference season.
At the conference finals, which took place in West Virginia in mid April, Lolia was again voted the MVP and then went on to sweep three awards at the university’s season ending award night. She was voted the most improved player in the women’s tennis team and added the Chester Davis Sportsmanship Award instituted by a former national star athlete from the school.
The biggest of the awards, which came at the end, was the Shaw University Athletic Director’s Award for Female Athlete of the Year. In 2009, her first year at the college, she was voted the rookie of the year for the entire conference and helped her school to qualify for the regionals for the first time in almost a decade – a feat the team repeated this year.
