PULLMAN, Wash. -- Four Washington State University volleyball players will be among the 234 athletes from 89 colleges to participate in the three-day open tryouts for the U.S. Women's National Team, U.S. Collegiate National Teams and U.S. Women's Junior National Team March 2-4, at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (USOTC) in Colorado Springs.
 
Cougars participating in the tryouts are juniors Claire Martin and Taylor Mims, and sophomores Ashley Brown and Alexis Dirige.
 
Mims was a member of the 2017 U.S. Collegiate National Team - Europe Tour that won gold at the Global Challenge Tournament titles in Pula, Croatia, where she earned all-tournament honors in leading the USA team to its second consecutive championship.
 
Claire Martin is a 6-4 junior middle blocker from Bremerton, Wash. She averaged 1.11 blocks per set overall and 1.05 blocks per set in Pac-12 matches. Highlights from the 2017 season for Martin include her season-high 10 blocks at Oregon State, her career-high 12 kills with a .706 hitting percentage and five blocks in a 3-1 win over Arizona State, and had 12 kills and eight blocks in the 3-1 NCAA First Round win over Florida State. In the NCAA tournament Martin's 1.43 blocks per set average was 17th-best. Her 140 total blocks in the 2017 season was 49th-best in the NCAA. In WSU career rankings Martin has 35 solo blocks (18th), 388 block assists (3rd), 423 blocks (3rd) and 1.27 blocks per set (7th). A mechanical engineer major, Martin was named to the 2016 and 2017 Pac-12 All-Academic Honorable Mention teams.
 
Taylor Mims is a 6-3 junior opposite hitter from Billings, Mont., who was a 2017 All-Pac-12 First Team selection after being a 2016 Pac-12 Honorable Mention honoree as a middle blocker. Mims was also named to the 2017 and 2016 PrepVolleyball.com All-America Honorable Mention and the VolleyballMag.com All-America Honorable Mention Teams. She was a team co-captain and the Cougars statistical leader, leading WSU to its second consecutive NCAA Championship Tournament Second Round appearance. Mims' 4.17 kills per set and 4.75 points per set, both sixth-best in Pac-12, are 30th and 26th, respectively, in NCAA. She had 28 kills and 79 attacks in the 3-1 win NCAA First Round win over Florida State to lead all players in the 2017 NCAA tournament. In that same match Mims also had a career-high 22 digs and 31.5 points. Her 599 points in 2017 was 12th-best in the NCAA. During the Pac-12 season, Mims' 4.38 kills per set and 4.95 points per set were both are second-best in conference. Her statistics from the 2017 season and their rankings in WSU all-time include 525 kills (3rd), 1533 attack attempts (1st), 4.17 kps (7th), 599.0 points (2nd), and 4.75 pps (4th). In WSU career rankings Mims has 899 kills (23rd), 2410 attacks (19th), 2.63 kps (26th), .120 hitting percentage (19th), 49 solo blocks (t-10th), 327 block assists (10th), 376 total blocks (t-9th), 1.10 bps (14th), and 1161.5 points (6th). In the summer of 2017 won a Gold medal and named to All-Tournament team at CNT-Europe team at 13th Annual Global Challenge in Croatia
 
Ashley Brown is a 5-9 sophomore setter from Prosper, Texas, who transferred to WSU from the University of Oklahoma in January of 2017. She was an integral part of WSU's 6-2 offense and later in the season took over sole responsibility of the setting duties. Brown was named to Dr. Mary Jo Wynn Invite All-Tournament Team. She averaged 5.90 assists per set overall and 5.75 assists per set in Pac-12. Her career-high 57 assists came in WSU's NCAA First Round win over Florida State and was the most in a four-set match during the 2017 Championship Tournament. The 57 assists also tied for the most by a Pac-12 setter in 2017. Brown served four aces in a 3-2 loss to Baylor and that total is second-most in a 5-set match in Pac-12 this year.
 
Alexis Dirige is a 5-2 sophomore libero from San Francisco. Her 36 digs in WSU's 3-1 win at Howard University is the WSU record for most digs in a four-set match. She had 37 digs in 3-2 win over No. 13 UCLA which is the second-highest digs total in a match in WSU all-time and second for digs in a five-set match. Dirige's 37 digs was also the most digs in a Pac-12 match in 2017. She averaged 4.52 digs per set which was third-best in Pac-12 standings and in just Pac-12 matches she had a 4.65 digs per set average, also third-best. Her 569 digs in the 2017 season is the WSU record for most digs in a single season and 40th-best in NCAA. Dirige reached double-digit digs in 27 out of 34 matches and had 20 or more digs in 13 matches. She was the 11th player in WSU history to reach 1,000 digs and did it the fastest of all players in just 246 sets. Her 1,055 digs is 11th in WSU career record and her 4.16 digs per set average is third-best in WSU history. She was named to the 2017 Pac-12 All-Academic Honorable Mention Team.
 
The position breakdown of the women at the tryouts are 48 liberos, 50 middles, 62 outsides, 31 opposites and 43 setters. Three-time Olympic gold medalist and U.S. Olympic Hall of Famer Karch Kiraly and the U.S. Women's National Team staff will lead the tryout process. USA Volleyball will announce the selections by the end of March once roster spots are accepted and confirmed.
 
USA Volleyball will use #USAVTryout as the tryout hashtag for photos, notes, quotes and stories posted to its social media platforms Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram under the handle @usavolleyball. Live streaming video from the open tryouts beginning March 2 at 1 p.m. PT at
http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Volleyball/USA-Teams/Indoor-Volleyball/Women/National-Team-Tryouts. For more information about the tryouts, go to USAVolleyball.org.