Madelyn Kaprelyan

Classroom

Madelyn Kaprelyan was named the Northeast Conference Volleyball Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2018. Holding a 3.51 GPA as a biomolecular sciences major, Kaprelyan has been named to the Northeast Conference Fall Academic Honor Roll (3.2 or better GPA) in each of her first three seasons. She is a dean’s list student and has also earned Northeast Conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll (3.75 or better GPA) on one occasion. Kaprelyan helped the team post a 3.62 GPA in the spring and earn the American Volleyball Coaches Association Team Academic Award for the 13th straight year.

Character

Kaprelyan is a team captain for 2019 and is always willing to do whatever is best for the team to put it in position to win. An outside hitter for her first two seasons, Kaprelyan took on the role of playing setter in rotation during her junior season because of an injury to the starter during a match. She would go on to become the league’s top all-around player and help the team earn the league’s Team Sportsmanship Award in 2018.

Community

Kaprelyan has been active in the team’s community service activities, including annually visiting area elementary schools to welcome back students and staff and encourage them to have a great year. The team holds an annual school supplies drive for the Smalley School in New Britain to collect supplies to give each 4th and 5th grade student a bag for the spring semester. They also collected supplies to provide each teacher with a bag of supplies for their classroom.

Kaprelyan, the volleyball team and all of CCSU’s student-athletes invite more than 400 New Britain elementary school students to campus each year as part of the Ana Grace Project: Finish the Race. The day is designed to show students that high school doesn’t have to be the end of their education and gives them a taste of college life. Kaprelyan and the student-athletes engage the students in a variety of athletic activities, and, through donations, each participating elementary student receives a pair of athletic shoes. The students also receive backpacks with items such as water bottles, wrist bands and sports drinks.

Competition

Kaprelyan was named the 2018 Northeast Conference Player of the Year, becoming the first CCSU student-athlete in program history to earn the honor. She also was named ECAC Offensive Player of the Year and earned All-ECAC Team honors. Kaprelyan was named to the All-Northeast Conference First Team in 2018 after earning second-team honors in 2017. She earned Molten/NEC Player of the Week honors three times in 2018 and was named PrepVolleyball.com National Player of the Week: Non-Power 5 on Oct. 10. She ranked second in the NCAA in 2018 with five triple-doubles and was among the top five in the conference in both hitting percentage and kills per set. Kaprelyan posted nine double-doubles on the season, narrowly missing a quadruple-double in the conference tournament semifinals with 18 kills, 20 assists, 11 digs and nine blocks.