Hawaii men’s volleyball star setter Jakob Thelle named AVCA Player of the Year

University of Hawaii star setter Jakob Thelle has been named the AVCA Player of the Year.

After winning the two most recent Big West Conference Player of the Year awards, it is the first time Thelle has been named the national player of the year.

The senior from Norway is UH’s first player to win AVCA POY since Rado Parapunov did so in 2021.

Hawaii will play Penn State in Thursday’s second NCAA national semifinal at 1:30 p.m. HST. The match will be streamed on NCAA.com and ESPN Honolulu.

Thelle joins Parapunov, Yuval Katz (1996) and Costas Theocharidis (2001, 2003) as winners of the award. Thelle is also the first UH men’s setter to win the award.