MALIBU, Calif. — Rachel Ahrens of the #23 Pepperdine women's volleyball team was named one out of 30 women's volleyball candidates for the 2021 Senior CLASS Award today.
 
The Senior CLASS Award looks at women's volleyball student-athletes who are classified as a NCAA Division I senior or graduate student in four specific areas of excellence: community, classroom, character, and competition. An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®, the award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
 
There will be 10 finalists named later in the season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one candidate who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character, and competition. The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship in December.
 
Ahrens (Trabuco Canyon, Calif./Tesoro HS), a senior outside hitter, has been an instrumental part of the Waves' success during her time here.  She earned AVCA All-American honorable mention acclaim in 2020, along with AVCA Pacific South All-Region first team and All-WCC first team honors last season as well.  She garnered an All-WCC second team nod in 2019 and WCC All-Freshman Team honors in 2018.  In the last two seasons, she has been earned WCC Offensive Player of the Week nods six times, including once this season and five times in her junior campaign.
 
This season, Ahrens became the 21^st Wave to hit the 1,000 career-kill mark and currently has notched 1,116 smashes throughout four seasons and counting.  Last season in the NCAA second round, she hit the 102-ace mark and currently has tallied 130 aces throughout her career thus far, which ranks tied for 3^rd in the all-time Pepperdine record books.
 
Ahrens has also been successful in the classroom and in her community.  She earned WCC All-Academic honorable mention acclaim and WCC Commissioner's Honor Roll 'bronze' honors, along with a Pepperdine Scholar-Athlete nod last season.  She has amassed a 3.216 cumulative grade point average throughout her time at Pepperdine, including a 3.162 GPA during the extremely difficult 2019-2020 academic year. 
 
Despite limited time outside of volleyball and school, Rachel still commits herself to helping the local and surrounding communities.  She has handed out food on skid row, which contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless please (about 4,200-8,000) in the Unites States.  She has also worked numerous camps promoting the game of volleyball to youths while at Pepperdine and coached with the Doheny Beach Volleyball Club.  Recently this year, Ahrens started helping lead the spiritual life group within the Waves Leadership Council (WCC), Pepperdine's version of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).  She is heading to her fourth year working with the WLC as a student leader.
 
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