Dec. 17, 2004

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - After a banner senior campaign that has already produced 14 in-season and post-season awards, setter Heather Watts received yet another prestigious honor as she was named an AVCA honorable mention All-America performer. Watts, who was the second Memphis ever to garner AVCA All-Region honors, is first Tiger player ever to earn All-America recognition.

Conference USA's Setter of the Year, Watts joins six other league players that hauled in ACVA All-America honors. Louisville's Ana Yartseva received AVCA All-America Third Team recognition, while Jennifer Hoffman, Bing Sun and Lena Ustymenko -each from Louisville- were named AVCA honorable mention. Saint Louis' Aida Antanaviciute and Julie DuPont of Cincinnati also garnered AVCA honorable mention accolades.

"Heather is very deserving of this honor as well as all the other awards she has received," said Yerty. "I am glad to see that the rest of the country recognizes her ability. She has represented the University, our program and Conference USA with class."

The Tigers captain led Memphis to a 27-10 record in 2004 for its second consecutive 25-plus win season. She also broke the Memphis and Conference USA record for assists in a single season with 1,830 and has now set C-USA class records for assists in each of the last three seasons. In three seasons with Watts at the setter position, Memphis is 76-31 and has put up three of program's top five team single season kill totals.

Watts led the league in assists in both 2003 and 2004, finishing her senior season ranked 14th nationally with 13.46 assists per game. She wrapped up her career with the second-most assists (5,206) in Tiger history and the third-most in the C-USA record books. The Sany, Utah native also finished with 1,402 digs, good for the second all-time at Memphis and 11th among all-time C-USA performers.