Irvine Valley's No. 8 story of the top 10 athletics stories of the 2013-14 school year features women's volleyball and sand volleyball player Marisa Doran.
Doran had a standout year playing volleyball, helping the IVC women's indoor team finish third in the state and its sand team take a club state title for the second year in a row.
She was also named all-Orange Empire Conference during the indoor season last fall after finishing second on the team in kills.
But it was Doran's efforts off the court that were even more impressive.
Each year, the Orange Empire Conference names one male and female student athlete from each member college to the Character Champion Team while picking overall winners of the Character Champion Award.
An Irvine Valley College student athlete was named one of the overall winners for the fifth straight year.
Freshman women's volleyball player and sand volleyball player Marisa Doran was selected as the 2014 OEC Fair-Play Female Character Champion.
The award is given to the student athlete who displays the following values; sportsmanship, respect, caring, fairness, civility, honesty, integrity and responsibility shown through a specific action, ideally directed toward an opponent during competition.
The criteria also includes the action of putting the team and teammates before oneself while acting as a positive role model.
The inaugural award was given out following the 2009-10 academic year. Since its inception, the OEC Character Champion Award has been sponsored by Fair-Play Scoreboards.
Caitlin Segert (2010), Chris Popke (2011), Melanie Kashanchi and Kevin Riguette (2012) and Josh Popke (2013) were previous overall winners for Irvine Valley.
Doran was selected as the OEC's Female Character Champion after displaying her ability to juggle school, indoor and sand volleyball, as well as community service.
As a pre-med student, Doran has volunteered at the Children's Hospital of Orange County in the patient hospitality area.
Doran was also recently accepted into the clinical care internship program at Hoag Hospital, a position she will add to her current volunteer work and school obligations.
All of this is in addition to the time she spends as a volunteer with the City of Tustin, where she works with volleyball camps and clinics.
On the court, she was a big reason why Irvine Valley had one of its best indoor volleyball seasons this past year.
The team had a record of 24-2 overall and finished third in the state.
She was named first team all-Orange Empire Conference. Doran averaged 2.73 kills per set and 229 overall kills. Both totals were second-best on the IVC squad. Doran led the team with 33 aces and was fourth on the team in digs with 172.
Doran, an outside hitter, recorded 11 matches with at least 10 kills, including a season-high 21 kills in a four-set win at Fullerton last November.
Doran was also a part of Irvine Valley's second state title in sand volleyball. She played as part of one of the top two teams for the Lasers with fellow freshman Kobi Pekich.
IVC didn't lose a match in the state final event held at IVC last month, beating Grossmont, Fullerton and Golden West.
*In leading up to the start of the 2014-15 athletics campaign at Irvine Valley, which starts on Aug. 25 with women's volleyball, the Laser athletic department will countdown the top 10 IVC sports stories from the 2013-14 school year.
The countdown will begin on Thursday, Aug. 7 with the No. 10 story of the year and work its way down to No. 1 on Thursday, Aug. 21.
Some of the top stories in the running for the top 10 include special seasons by the women's soccer, men's tennis, women's volleyball and women's sand volleyball teams along with individual accolades earned by several IVC athletes for hard work both on the playing fields and courts and in the classroom.
