Washington middle hitter Adriana Tyson has been named Conference Player-of-the-Year for her leadership on and off the court, the Eastern Plains Committee disclosed on Wednesday.

“I’m extremely happy and honored I was able to get the award this year,” Tyson said. “It’s nice to been able to been recognized for all my achievements and improvements.”

Tyson led her team and the conference with 293 kills this season, while also notching 71 aces, 98 blocks, 22 assists and 564 digs.

She was the key piece in head coach Kelly Slade’s team, a permanent fixture on the court, sitting only if her team had secured a healthy lead.

“Adriana just led the team in everything,” Slade said. “The thing about her is, even though she was the leader stat wise, she was a great leader on the court. She was a great mentor to the younger players and to the other seniors. She was a teacher and really helped me coach. She helped out more than anybody realizes and understands.”

Tyson was the primary piece to a quartet of seniors who had been playing together since the eighth grade at P.S. Jones. It’s a group that joined the Pam Pack volleyball program in 2011 as freshmen, even though the team had won just one of 19 games last season.

In their first year, which also happened to be Slade’s first as Pam Pack coach, the team managed to win just one game, once again, but the season set the foundation for a rebuilding process that came full circle in 2014.

Washington was relegated to Class 2-A prior to the 2013 campaign, transferring the Pam Pack volleyball program from a competitive Coastal to a very winnable Eastern Plains Conference. The drop in class gave Tyson the opportunity to excel and went on to lead her team to a 17-8 record and EPC Tournament championship.

But it was the impact Slade’s leading hitter had outside of game situations that not only helped her grow as a person, but allowed the rest of the team, young and old, to grow as well. This year, Slade believes Tyson has established a precedent at Washington High School, an atmosphere of winning and class that she thinks will persist through time.

“I’m confident in the program because I’ve wanted the younger girls to see me as a leader,” Tyson said. “Eventually, they told me I was a leader. If they see how I am, then they need to strive to be like me, if not better, so for years to come we just keep getting better and better with more leaders on the team.”

Tyson will be one of five seniors graduating this May, four of which are regular starters.