UCLA was the last team standing after three chaotic days in Honolulu as the NCAA beach volleyball season opened with a bang. Also, Arizona State bedeviled the competition in Tampa and TCU dispatched two ranked foes in Houston. We conclude this report with a look ahead to the second week of the young season:
Battered-but-unbowed Bruins
Wounded multiple times during the first two days of round-robin battles on Queen’s Beach, UCLA rallied on Saturday to win the war.
The Bruins, ranked No. 2 in the AVCA preseason beach-volleyball poll, blitzed No. 1 USC 4-1 in the title dual of the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic in Honolulu, culminating an epic march through the championship bracket.
UCLA had staggered out of round-robin play with a 1-3 record, beaten 4-1 by the archrival Women of Troy, 3-2 by No. 7 Stanford and 3-2 by No. 5 Loyola Marymount, with only a 5-0 victory over No. 9 Hawaii as a Band-Aid on the blood-letting.
But longtime assistant and now head coach Jenny Johnson Jordan, in her first tournament in command, inspired her troops in a final-day counterattack.
First to fall, by a 5-0 count in the quarterfinal, were the host Rainbow Wahine, who lost all five of their duals on home sand. Stanford put up stiff opposition in the semifinals before succumbing 3-2, with Jaden Whitmarsh and Tessa Van Winkle beating Chloe Hoffman and Kate Reilly 21-18, 21-17 on Court 3 to clinch the victory for the Bruins.
Pivotal in the 42nd meeting all-time between UCLA and USC, the most decorated programs in NCAA beach volleyball, was a 21-15, 21-17 victory on the marquee No. 1 court by Bruins Maggie Boyd and Lexy Denaburg over Megan Kraft and Delaynie Maple. Boyd and Denaburg had gone 3-3 in their matches on storied Queen’s Beach coming into the final, including a straight-sets setback to Kraft and Maple, who came into the final undefeated without losing a set.
The Bruins’ 5s pair of junior Natalie Myszkowski and sophomore Ensley Alden, who went 6-1 on the weekend, sealed the victory by topping Olivia Bakos and Ainsley Radell 21-19, 24-22. UCLA took a 24-18 advantage in the all-time series with USC, which advanced to the championship dual with a 4-1 victory in the semifinals over Loyola Marymount.
The team that likely raised its stock the most during the three-day opening-week firefight was Stanford. The Cardinal won significant skirmishes by going unbeaten during round-robin…
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