Who is the queen of NCAA Beach Volleyball?

HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. — Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth came on the podcast last month. In the accompanying write-up that goes with every episode of SANDCAST, I mentioned that Nuss is the winningest NCAA beach volleyball player of all time.

A few days later, Jordan Cheng, a good friend of mine and the coach of Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng, asked how Nuss’ 139 wins could be more than Hughes’ 190.

He is not the first to ask this question.

When Nuss broke the NCAA record during her senior season in 2021, LSU justifiably made a mighty big deal of the matter. Shortly after, Anna Collier, Hughes’ coach at USC, called and asked how this could possibly be, since Nuss hadn’t amassed as many total wins as Hughes.

Almost every time I have written about either Hughes or Nuss in the two years since, and note their collegiate success, readers from both sides of the LSU-USC divide will message me, virtual pitchforks and torches in hand.

Neither are wrong.

LSU is right to celebrate Nuss as the winningest NCAA beach volleyball player of all time.

USC is right to argue the matter that Hughes is the winningest collegiate beach volleyball player of all time.

Both players will go down with immutable legacies in the sport. Hughes helped establish the most dynastic program in all of college sport. Nuss helped put a plucky LSU program on the map, an East Region team fit to challenge the West. Both are now in contention to make the Olympic Games, widely considered to be two of the top three defenders in the United States.

But what gives? Who is the rightful queen of college beach’s throne?

Both, really.

Hughes finished her career at USC 190-8; Nuss closed hers at LSU 139-21. Where the semantics come into play is that Hughes competed in the AVCA her first two years at USC, while the sport was still deemed an “emerging sport” until it hit the threshold of 40 schools adopting it as an officially sanctioned sport. Her 2014 and 2015 seasons, then, didn’t count, as they are technically AVCA wins, not NCAA wins. That lops of 86 wins from her NCAA ledger, which leaves her with 104 NCAA wins.

Again, semantics. And, again, neither fanbase is wrong. Hughes won 190 matches in four seasons at USC. Kelly Claes (now Cheng) won 181, and Nicolette Martin 141, all of which are, obviously, cumulatively…