April 28, 2011
STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford juniors Erik Shoji and Brad Lawson repeated as first-team men's volleyball All-Americans, as announced by the American Volleyball Coaches Association Thursday.
This is the third first-team honor for Shoji and the second for Lawson.
Shoji, a libero, becomes the second Stanford player to receive three first-team honors from the AVCA, which has selected All-America teams since 1991. He joins Matt Fuerbringer, who earned first-team honors in 1994, '96, and '97). Two other Cardinal players - Scott Fortune ('86, '87, '89) and Dan Hanan ('88, '89, '90) - earned three first-team All-America honors through other organizations.
Lawson, an outside hitter, becomes one of six Cardinal players to earn multiple AVCA first-team honors, joining Shoji, Fuerbringer, Canyon Ceman ('92, '93), Dave Goss ('92, '93), and Erik's brother Kawika Shoji (2009, '10). In addition, Duncan Blackman ('90, '92) and Jon Root ('84, '86) earned various first-team honors, giving Stanford 10 multiple first-team All-Americans in its history.
Shoji and Lawson, both from Honolulu, Hawaii, but from different high schools (Shoji went to Punahou, Lawson to Iolani), led the Cardinal to a 19-9 record and third place in the rugged Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Stanford lost in the first round of the MPSF tournament to Long Beach State on Saturday, but will find out Sunday if it secured an at-large berth in the four-team NCAA tournament May 5-7 in University Park, Pa.
Earlier this season, Shoji broke Fortune's Stanford career record for digs -- Shoji has 1,098, to Fortune's 976. This season, Shoji's 286 digs and 2.62 digs per set are each second in the country.
Lawson is No. 2 on Stanford's all-time kills list during the rally-scoring era (since 2001) with 1,377. He averaged 4.33 kills per set and had a .331 hitting percentage. Lawson earned first-team All-MPSF honors the past two years as well, having been selected as the MPSF Player of the Year and NCAA Tournament co-Most Outstanding Player along with Kawika Shoji last year.
Click here for the complete AVCA All-America list.