Blake, Hui, Forood Lead All-Conference Honors

STANFORD, Calif. – Following a run to the program’s third consecutive Pac-12 Tournament title, Stanford picked up to major awards from the league when the conference announced its postseason honors on Friday, as voted on by Pac-12 head coaches. Angelica Blake was named Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year, Katherine Hui was selected Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, and Lele Forood earned recognition as Pac-12 Coach of the Year. 

Blake was also voted to the All-Pac-12 first team and joined there by Connie Ma and Alexandra Yepifanova. Hui was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection, while Alexis Blokhina and Valencia Xu received All-Pac-12 honorable mention accolades. 

Blake has had a standout season as a graduate student and is No. 25 in the ITA national rankings. She’s played exclusively at the No. 1 spot, going 11-4 this season and 10-3 in duals, and has won six in a row, all in straight sets, with the last four over ranked opponents. Blake, who was 7-1 against conference opponents this spring, was at her best in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals and final last week in Ojai, beating USC’s No. 90 Snow Han 6-0, 6-2 and California’s No. 41 Hannah Viller Moeller 6-0, 6-1. She is Stanford’s 18th Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year and second in a row following Yepifanova last season. It’s the first time one school has had two different players win back-to-back player of the year awards since Stanford in 2001 (Laura Granville) and 2002 (Gabriela Lastra).

Playing primarily at No. 5, Hui has gone 14-5 in her debut season. She’s 13-3 in duals and has gone 9-1 against Pac-12 opponents. Teaming up with Valencia Xu in doubles, the pair has gone 16-5 during the dual season at No. 3 and have beaten the only two ranked doubles teams they’ve faced this season – Washington’s No. 78 Melissa Sakar and Catherine Gagnon (6-2) and USC’s No. 42 Parker Fry and Grace Piper (6-4). Hui is Stanford’s seventh Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and first since Connie Ma two seasons ago.

This season is the first to have two different student-athletes from one school with both Singles Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year since California in 2016 when Maegan Manasse was the Player of the Year and Olivia Hauger the Freshman of the Year. This is the first time in Stanford history it has won both awards in the same season.

Now an eight-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Forood is the first back-to-back winner of the award since she did it herself in 2010 and 2011. She led the Cardinal to its third…