For the second straight season Reaghan Thompson led the Southland Conference in blocks and blocks per set. For the second straight season that has landed her a spot on the conference’s second team squad, the league office announced on Wednesday.
Thompson followed her breakout freshman campaign with a record-setting sophomore season in 2023. Not only did she lead the conference in blocks for the year, she ranked in the top five in the country with 154 at the end of the regular season. Her 1.54 per set average was also the ninth best rate in the NCAA.
The Kemah, Texas, native finished conference play with 103 total blocks, breaking the Southland rally scoring era record along with the per set record with a 1.54 average in league play. Her 154 overall for the season is the sixth most during that era and her 1.51 overall average is the best in conference rally-scoring history.
On the season Thompson had 15 matches with five or more blocks and three more matches with double-digit blocks including tying the NSU match record with 13 rejections against Texas A&M-Commerce. Thompson now owns six of the top 10 best single-match blocking performances in NSU history.
She saved some of best performances for the top teams in the conference tallying 53 total blocks and a 1.77 average against the top four seeds in this year’s conference tournament. In two matches against the No. 1 seeded Southeastern she had 19 stops with a 2.4 set averaged.
In just her second season with the Demons, Thompson has skyrocketed up the career blocking charts becoming the fastest player in program history to reach both the 200 and 300 marks, reaching both marks this season. She needed just 61 matches to become the fourth player in history to record 300 blocks and went from 200 blocks to 300 in the span of just 19 matches.
An equally as efficient offensive player, Thompson also finished seventh in the conference with a .300 attack percentage, one of seven players with a .300 rate or better this year. She committed more than three errors in a match just twice on the entire season and had 10 matches where she hit better than .350.
Thompson is one of six repeat all-conference selections this season. Texas A&M’s Kyndal Payne was named conference player of the year for the second straight season and Southeastern head coach Jeremy White was named coach of the year.
Player of the Year: Kyndal Payne, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Katrinka Jo Crawford Coach of the Year: Jeremy White, Southeastern
Newcomer of the Year: Rachel Hartmann, Southeastern
Freshman of the Year: Tshilanda Diouf, McNeese
Setter of the Year: Belle Morgan, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Libero of the Year: Bailey Tillman, McNeese
