Saint Xavier Dominates Men's Volleyball Honor Roll
CHICAGO --- Dominant during both the regular season and postseason play, NAIA No. 3-ranked Saint Xavier University was the same when the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference announced its 2026 men's volleyball honor roll on Monday afternoon. The Cougar program totaled a league-high 10 awards, including taking four of the top five individual honors. It also had six of its starters make up half of the 12-member all-conference first team.
A total of 30 awards were presented on Monday, broken up into a pair of 12-member all-conference teams, the five individual honors and one team award.
Regular-season and tournament runner-up Governors State University followed SXU with six honorees. The rest of the breakdown had St. Ambrose University with five awards, Viterbo University and Olivet Nazarene University with three each, Judson University with two and Trinity Christian College claiming the Champions of Character Team award.
Leading the pack for the second year in a row was SXU's Matt Pennala (Long Beach, Calif.), who was again named the CCAC Player of the Year. He tops the league charts in kills per set (3.94), while ranking second in both total service aces (38) and services aces per set (.47), third in attack percentage (.347) and fifth in total kills (319).
On the national leaderboard, the graduate opposite-side hitter is 11th in kills per set, 13th in aces per set and 16th in total aces.
Andres Velez (Toa Baja, Puerto Rico), meanwhile, completed the four-year sweep as the CCAC Libero of the Year in 2026. The senior did so by authoring a 2.85 digs-per-set average with his 251 total digs, which rank him fourth and fifth in the league, respectively.
Also four-peating was head coach Tom Ryan, who led his team to its sixth straight regular-season crown and seventh tournament title earlier this month. Ryan, who has guided the Cougars to a 28-3 record and the No. 3 national ranking, has now claimed CCAC Coach of the Year accord six times, including the past four campaigns.
Rounding out the quartet of individual Cougars boasting top honors was Cameron Daniels (Omaha, Neb.), who was recognized as the league's best setter. The junior tops the CCAC charts in both assists (910) and assists per set (10.83), while sitting fourth in service aces per set (.42) and sixth in total aces (35).
Daniels also places in the Top 10 nationally in a pair of statistical categories with his assists-per-set (fourth) and total assists (fifth) marks.
Governors State's Pablo Pascual (Madrid, Spain) gained the other top award when he was recognized as the CCAC Freshman of the Year. The outside hitter made quite the first impression, placing fourth in kills per set (3.29), sixth in total kills (313), 12th in attack percentage (.214) and 13th in total blocks (58).
Of the 12 members named to the all-conference first team, seven were part of the squad last year, as well. Velez completed his four-year run with a spot on the top team each year, while Pennala was recognized for the third year in a row. Repeating were Judson's Mason Snodgrass (Lubbock, Texas), St. Ambrose's Michael Bos (Chicago, Ill.) and Pedro Zang (Sao Leopoldo, Brazil) and Saint Xavier's Daniels and Caydann Cox (Helena, Mont.).
For the complete list of award winners, go to Awards.