Much like their indoor counterparts, the coaches of the top NCAA beach teams are not hesitant about playing each other. By the time the NCAA Championship comes around the first week of May, all the highest ranked programs will likely have played each other multiple times.
There’s more this week in San Luis Obispo where No. 6 Cal Poly (21-3) is the host for the Friday-Saturday “Center of Challenge” that includes No. 1 UCLA (22-4), No. 2 USC (24-3), No. 4, Florida State (25-5), No. 5 TCU (23-5), No. 7 Long Beach State (20-4), No.10 LMU (21-8), and Pepperdine.
It certainly rivals the field that competed in Baton Rouge for LSU’s Death Volley Invitational two weeks ago that included, at the time, Nos 1-6, 10 and 17 in the AVCA Collegiate Beach Poll.
Cal Poly is in a pool with UCLA, FSU and LMU, while the other pool includes USC, TCU, Long Beach and Pepperdine. Each team plays two matches per day.
Click here for the Center of Challenge schedule and more information.
Third-ranked Stanford (22-3) is home for matches Friday against Arizona and Pacific.
Eight-ranked Cal (16-10) plays two home matches Friday against Sacramento State.
No. 10 LSU (16-9) has another home gathering, this time with Jacksonville, New Orleans, Louisiana-Monroe and Southeastern Louisiana.
The big gathering last week was the Pac-12 North Invitational at Alki Beach in Seattle, Washington. Photographer Stephen Burns was there and some of his best shots follow.
UCLA went 3-0, beating Cal 4-1, sweeping Utah and then No. 17 Arizona 4-1. The Bruins then played a couple of home matches on Tuesday, sweeping both Long Beach State and CSUN.
USC also went 3-0, but was after beating now-No. 13 Arizona State and Stanford by 4-1 scores, the Trojans battled to a 3-2 victory over Cal.
Stanford went 3-1. After losing to USC, the Cardinal beat No. 11 Washington 4-1, and then went 5-0 against Utah and Arizona.
Florida State played at home and defeated North Florida, Florida International, North Alabama, UAB and No. 20 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
TCU went 4-0 at its own invite. The Horned Frogs swept HCU, beat No. 12 Hawai’i 3-2 and 4-1, and then beat Texas 3-2.
Click on any photo from the Pac-12 North Invitational to view full size:
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