HONOLULU — With a GPA as impressive as her APG, Chaminade University’s Alexia Byrnes was named the Pacific West Conference Women’s Volleyball Scholar-Athlete of the Year on Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • Alexia Byrnes maintained a 3.86 grade-point average in graduate courses in counseling psychology while amassing 844 assists (7.09 per set), 285 digs, 101 kills, 49 aces and 30 blocks for the PacWest’s repeat champion Silverswords

  • She was earlier named the PacWest player of the year and setter of the year

  • After playing the first three years of her collegiate career at Youngstown State, the redshirt senior helped Chaminade to back-to-back PacWest championships and the school’s first-ever NCAA West Regional finals

  • A record-setting 1,819 PacWest student-athletes met the requirements for Academic All-PacWest Team honors

Byrnes maintained a 3.86 grade-point average in graduate courses in counseling psychology while amassing 844 assists (7.09 per set), 285 digs, 101 kills, 49 aces and 30 blocks for the PacWest’s repeat champion Silverswords.

The academic honor caps a golden career for Byrnes, who was earlier named the PacWest player of the year and setter of the year. She also made the West Region First Team and was an AVCA All-American honorable mention.

After playing the first three years of her collegiate career at Youngstown State, the redshirt senior helped Chaminade to back-to-back PacWest championships and the school’s first-ever NCAA West Regional finals. She finished her career ranked No. 5 on Chaminade’s all-time assist list. Including her years at Youngstown State, Byrnes compiled 3,251 assists over her collegiate career. 

Byrnes was one of the 15 student-athletes who were named scholar-athletes of the year in each PacWest-sponsored sport. She is now eligible for the overall female scholar-athlete of the year award, which will be announced in early July.

Overall, 2022-23 was a banner year academically for the conference.

A record-setting 1,819 PacWest student athletes met the requirements for Academic All-PacWest Team honors. To qualify, each student-athlete had to maintain a cumulative 3.0 grade-point average, complete at least two semesters at their institution and participate in regular season competition in one of the 15 conference sports.

Some 118 student-athletes maintained a 4.0 GPA in undergraduate or graduate studies, shattering the previous record of 81 set the previous year.

Byrnes was one of 11 Chaminade volleyball players to maintain a 3.0 GPA.

Hawaii Pacific University’s baseball team set a PacWest record with 33 players on the academic all-conference team.

The University of Hawaii Hilo had 127 Academic All-PacWest scholar-athletes, the second highest total in school history. 

Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at michael.tsai@charter.com.