Women’s Beach Volleyball | July 31, 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – USC beach volleyball All-Americans Tina Graudina (Jurmala, Latvia) and Hailey Harward (Phoenix, Ariz.) reunited to capture their first-career AVP titles as winners of the Pro Series Fort Lauderdale Open on Sunday, July 31.
Extending on their 30-match collegiate winning streak, the eighth-seeded duo went 5-0 and capped the weekend with a 19-21, 21-15, 15-6 victory over USC All-American Julia Scoles (Mooresville, N.C.) and the first-ever Trojan beach volleyball scholarship recipient Geena Urango (Los Alamitos, Calif.) in the title match. A USC alumna has now won each of the last three AVP events and three of the four major AVP tournaments of the 2022 season.
Graudina and Harward’s victory represents the 63rd and 64th individual Trojan AVP women’s wins and the 49th event won by at least one female USC athlete. When added to tour wins by USC All-Americans Terese Cannon, Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes, and April Ross, at least one USC alumna has won 35 of the last 55 AVP events since the 2014 season.
Including Cheng (partnered with Betsi Flint) and Hughes (partnered with Kelley Kolinske), six of the eight semifinalists in today’s championship were Women of Troy, which set up the first-ever all-USC women’s final.
Graudina and Harward are the third all-USC duo to win an AVP title. Their victory marked the 14th time that an all-USC pair has won an AVP crown; the first since Cheng (then Claes) and Hughes teamed up to win the 2017 Chicago championship. Previously, Ross and USC All-American Jennifer Kessy captured 12 AVP championships together (2009-13).
Undefeated in their return to action, Graudina and Harward served notice and opened the tournament with a 21-8, 21-18 win over the ninth-seeded duo of Sarah Schermerhorn and Corinne Quiggle. They won their second match by knocking off the top-seeded pair of Cannon and Sarah Sponcil in a three-set decision, 21-16, 15-21, 15-9; and then continued their run with a 17-21, 21-16, 15-13 victory against the fourth-seeded team of Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. In their semifinal, Graudina and Harward went…
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