This week in college beach volleyball, the East Meets West Invitational is on fabled Manhattan Beach in a competition with undeniable postseason implications. In a wide-ranging interview, Brooke Niles, coach of No. 4 Florida State, talks about returning home to Southern California for the East-West, as well as the bigger picture of seeding for the NCAA Championships. We run down other action on a full weekend, and finish with an honor roll of conference pairs of the week.
The beach where seeds are planted
The focus this weekend turns to the hallowed sands of Manhattan Beach, California, where a stacked intersectional competition should provide a hard drive’s full of meaningful data for the NCAA Championship selection committee to weigh.
The East Meets West Invitational on Friday and Saturday, played on the deep sand of Manhattan Beach, in the shadow of its iconic pier on the South Bay, features five of the top eight teams in the country and eight of the top 16.
The results figure to factor heavily in the eight at-large bids to the NCAA Championships (May 3, 5-7) in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and likely will influence the seeding for the 17-team, single-elimination tournament by providing the committee with compelling head-to-head results. Four teams from the West (No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 USC, No. 7 Loyola Marymount and No. 8 Hawai’i) will battle four from the East (No. 4 Florida State, No. 5 LSU, No. 11 Georgia State and No. 16 Florida International) in 16 crossover duals over the two days.
The West’s lineup represents a Murderers’ Row for the East programs, with none remotely resembling a breather.
USC (13-1) has taken down eight ranked squads, including Pac-12 archrival UCLA, and its only loss is to undefeated TCU, the unanimous No. 1 in this week’s AVCA poll. Loyola Marymount (16-1) displayed its dominance of the WCC over the weekend by winning the West Coast Challenge, all four matches by 5-0 scores. The Lions hold victories over six ranked teams.
Nine ranked squads have fallen to UCLA (19-1), which ran its winning streak to 10 with a 4-1 victory over Hawai’i (20-4) on home sand Wednesday at Mapes Beach. The Rainbow Wahine had a streak of 18 duals snapped by the Bruins after they had run the table in the Big West Challenge. UCLA’s top pair for that dual of Abby Van Winkle and Peri Brennan breezed in a 21-10, 21-12 cakewalk over…
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