COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Loyola University Maryland sophomore libero Katie Forsythe will join more than 200 other athletes vying for spots into the U.S. Women's National Team's elite high-performance pipeline this weekend.
 
The two-time Patriot League Libero of the Year will compete at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs under the direction of U.S. National Team Coach Karch Kiraly.
 
The tryout will evaluate athletes from across the country for spots on the U.S. Women's National Team and the U.S. Collegiate National Team (CNT) program. Forsythe is the only player from the Patriot League to be invited to the three-day tryout.
 
A total of 16-18 players will be picked for the National Team, while the 2020 U.S. Collegiate National Team program will have 56 athletes selected with 28 each competing in two training time periods.
 
Both programs will train in Anaheim, California, alongside athletes selected for the U.S. Olympic Women's Volleyball Team and its coaching staff. The CNT Gold will train July 5-12 plus have an international competition in the Southern California area, while the CNT Anaheim group will train June 21-27 and have a Red-Blue intrasquad match in the Southern California area.
 
This year, Forsythe became the first Loyola player to earn All-Region honors from the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) after she broke the Loyola and Patriot League records for digs that she set as a freshman in 2018.
 
She finished the year with 753 total digs, a figure that ranked second in all of NCAA Division I, and her 6.17 digs per set were third.
 
Her 2019 total broke the record of 697 she set last season when she grabbed conference Libero and Rookie of the Year recognition in her first season at Loyola. Through two seasons on the Evergreen campus, Forsythe has 1,450 digs and the top-two season marks in school and Patriot League history.
 
A two-time All-Patriot League First Team honoree, she set a conference record in digs per set to become the first player in conference history to average more than six in a season. Her digs per set mark ranked 16^th in NCAA Division I history under the current scoring format, and her 753 total digs were 18^th.
 
In 2019, Forsythe had 13 or more digs in all but one of the Greyhounds' 31 contests, and she had 20-plus in 20 matches. Over the course of the last 10 matches this season, she had 21 or more digs every time she stepped on the court. Earlier in the year, she also tied the conference single-match record for digs with 46 in a four-set contest against College of the Holy Cross.
 
Forsythe did not shy away from the top competition as she was just off her season-long average against opponents ranked in the top-100 of the NCAA RPI, a group against which she averaged 5.81 digs per set.
 
She was named the Patriot League Player of the Week twice during the season and was the only libero to earn the honor. The first time came on September 23 after she became the fastest player in conference history to reach 1,000 digs in a career, doing so in just her 44th overall match. Forsythe was again honored in late October after setting the single-match record and averaging 10.7 digs per set in matches against Colgate University and the Crusaders.
 
With 50 more digs, she will qualify for the NCAA's digs per set list. Her current average of 6.02 would rank third on that chart.
 
She also was named this year's ECAC Defensive Player of the Year, an honor which encompasses all schools from the America East, Big East, Colonial, Mid-American, Metro Atlantic Athletic, Northeast, Patriot League, Ivy League and Atlantic-10 Conferences, as well as select schools from other conferences such as the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast and more.