Lake Forest College women's volleyball has earned the AVCA Team Academic Award for the second straight season, the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced Wednesday, July 23.
The honor requires a program to maintain a year-long team grade-point average of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale. The Foresters cleared that bar again under head coach Melanie Hughes, who has led the program since the 2024 season and has now guided it to consecutive academic awards.
Lake Forest was one of 803 collegiate women's volleyball teams and 1,432 programs overall across all levels to receive the 2025-26 honor, according to the AVCA.
"We are grateful for the dedication of the coaches and players who make both classroom and on-court success the lifeblood of their programs," AVCA CEO Jaime Gordon said in the announcement.
The award adds to a growing résumé for Hughes, who was named to the AVCA Thirty Under 30 list in April 2025. Before arriving in Lake Forest, she spent three seasons as an assistant at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in California, where she earned the 2022 AVCA Division III National Assistant Coach of the Year award and helped the Stags to three conference championships and two Final Four appearances. The 2025 season was her second leading the Foresters and her fifth coaching at the collegiate level.
The academic recognition is nothing new for the program. Lake Forest also earned the AVCA Team Academic Award in 2022 and 2020, giving the Foresters four total honors in the past six seasons.
The team opens its 2026 campaign Friday, September 4, against Concordia University at the Falcon Invite.
