Gamecocks Host Palmetto Invitational in Final Weekend of Regular Season

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina beach volleyball caps its regular season with a two day home tournament Friday and Saturday, the Palmetto Invitational. The weekend features matchups with UNCW on Friday and Erskine College and College of Charleston on Saturday. The Gamecocks are 18-7 overall for the season, earning them the No. 16 ranking in this week’s national coaches poll.

Policies regarding fan attendance have changed in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. This spring, attendance at home matches is limited only to player and staff pass lists for both South Carolina and visiting opponents. General attendance for fans is not allowed at this time.
 
“We are so excited to get to play at home, it’s an unbelievable experience and privilege to play on Wheeler Beach,” head coach Moritz Moritz said. “At the same time, it is imperative we continue to ensure the safety and wellness of our teams, staff and families.” 
 
“We love having Wheeler Beach as a place for fans to bring the family and spend the day watching great volleyball and, once we are able to, it’s going to be mean even more to see them back cheering us on. It will have a different feel this spring, but we are just grateful for the opportunity to be back here competing together.”
 
Pass list entrance is only permitted on the north side of the facility, as there will be a strict bubble for teams, staff and game day personnel that includes the sand surface. Masks must be worn at all times in the facility.

SENIOR SALUTE
The team will hold a special senior ceremony on Saturday prior to the College of Charleston dual, where the team will honor not only this year’s active graduates (Madison Brabham, Carly Schnieder, Morgyn Greer, Katie Smith, Jess Vastine, Quinn Fulton, Louise Kooiman, Avery Davis, Kennedy Copeland) but also recognize three members of the 2020 roster who were unable to celebrate their day due to the cancelation of the season (Hannah Edelman, Franky Harrison and Sarah Nacouzi). Between the current group and the three returning honorees, there are over 600 career starts and the trio of Harrison, Schnieder and Smith were starters on both of the team’s NCAA tournament-qualifying squads in 2017 and 2018.

SCOUTING THE WEEKEND FIELD
In the final weekend of the regular season, the Gamecocks welcome in three regional foes for the Palmetto Invitational. Friday features a dual with CCSA rival UNCW, which comes into the weekend at 5-9 overall. Another conference foe on the weekend schedule is College of Charleston, which is 8-10-1 overall. Both squads had to manage personnel issues in the early going of the spring due to the indoor volleyball season stretching from the fall to late March due to COVID. The third competitor in the mix this weekend is Erskine College, coming in from Due West, S.C. The Fleet are in their second year as a beach volleyball program, joining in a shortened 2020 season. 

While this is the first meeting between the Gamecocks and Fleet, South Carolina owns a record of 10-2 in the all-time series with College of Charleston and is 8-0 all-time against UNCW.

VETERAN STAFF GUIDES YOUNG SQUAD IN 2021
As year eight of Gamecock beach volleyball gets underway, the team will have a new look to the roster. More than half of the 24-woman roster are either in their first or second season with the program, including six true freshmen and one mid-year graduate transfer. What the team may appear to lack in experience on the roster is more than made up by the experience on its coaching staff. Head coach Moritz Moritz and assistant coach RJ Abella have been together since the program’s first season back in 2014. Across all of collegiate beach volleyball, the duo is currently tied only with defending champion UCLA (Stein Metzger and Jenny Johnson Jordan) in terms of longest tenure together as a staff.

SMITH RUNS WIN STREAK TO RECORD-SETTING HEIGHTS
Junior Jordan Smith‘s program-record 17-game win streak ended during the Gamecock Grand Slam weekend, though she does still lead the team with a 23-2 overall record. Her win streak was a program record, surpassing the previous 11-game streaks held by four different individuals: Leah Perri (March 3-24, 2018), Macie Tendrich (March 3-24, 2018), Sarah Blomgren (March 12-27, 2016) and Aubrey Ezell (March 12-27, 2016). Entering the final weekend of the regular season, Smith’s 23 wins is the fifth-highest win total in a single season by any Gamecock individual. Of Smith’s team-leading 23 wins, 13 have come against conference rivals. That ties her with Tendrich’s 2017 total for the program record for most CCSA wins in a single season.

GRAD CHANCE U
South Carolina welcomed its first grad transfer in 2015, when Jade Hayes came to Columbia from UCF. In the years since, the Gamecocks have one of the best track records in the country when it comes to developing indoor players for success in the beach game. Since Hayes’ arrival, the team has trained up 10 individuals who have combined for a record of 229-113 (.670) and played key roles on both of the team’s NCAA tournament runs in 2017 and 2018.   

This season, three indoor standouts will compete for the Garnet and Black. Madison Brabham was a crossover athlete with Texas A&M-Kingsville, earning All-America conference player of the year honors as a senior for the indoor team but also claiming AVCA Top Flight honors after going 22-8 overall and 21-5 in the No. 2 flight for the Javelinas’ beach team in 2019. Morgyn Greer has a juniors beach volleyball background, but played indoor exclusively for four seasons at Florida, playing in 54 career matches.  The duo made the starting lineup from day one in 2020, combining for 11 wins in an abbreviated spring and moved the group past an impressive milestone – 200 combined wins for the nine. So far this season, the two are a combined 34-13.

Nicole Deobler is the third graduate on the roster, joining in December after three seasons at Siena College in upstate New York. Deobler, a California native, played in 62 games at Siena, totaling over 400 kills and 350 career digs over three seasons.

GAMECOCKS IN THE NATIONAL RANKS
The team earned its first-ever ranking by the AVCA on March 6, 2017, and have not left the polls since. The Gamecocks peaked at No. 8 in the polls in 2018 and check in at No. 16 for the April 13 poll, marking 47 weeks in a row as a ranked team. 

SENIOR DUO CHASING HISTORY (AND ONE OTHER)
Carly Schnieder and Katie Smith came to South Carolina after a stellar high school club career as a pair, winning the AAU National Championship and USA Beach Volleyball National Championship together in the summer of 2016. Now in year five with the Gamecocks, the two are again together – but this time it’s in the program record book. Smith and Schnieder reached 80 career wins in back-to-back weekends earlier this season, and both are within range of Macie Tendrich’s program record of 93 career dual wins as an individual. Smith and Schnieder currently rank second and third, respectively, for career wins, but the record book assault doesn’t end there. Smith is the program leader for career conference wins (43), career wins versus ranked opponents (30) and career matches played (141). Schnieder is part of the program’s all-time winningest pair (43 wins with Julia Mannisto) and ranks second for conference wins, ranked wins and trails only Katie in overall matches played.

YOUTH MOVEMENT
The last two seasons have seen an injection in high school signees making an impact right away for South Carolina. Skylar Allen headlined the group in 2020 with a 5-7 overall record playing in the top positions of the lineup, and classmate Kaeli Crews also saw time in the lineup and as a main exhibition participant. This season, Allen is 15-10 overall and Crews earned her first collegiate win against College of Charleston on March 6. Adding to the depth has been the growth of fellow sophomores Peyton Gray and Sophie Manson, who have solidified the exhibition pairing and Manson made her first career start in the lineup on March 27 against TCU.

Also this spring, the team has seen two true freshmen crack the starting five. Alyssa Keller is 12-13 overall, including a 5-5 record in the number one pairing. Hannah Mackenhausen is 15-10 through the first six weekends, going 8-6 at number three and 7-2 at number four. 

SMITH WINNING THE HARD WAY
Entering her final season as the team’s active career wins leader, Katie Smith has earned her place in the program’s record book. The West Chester, Ohio native has 89 dual wins, already ranking her second in program history, and her .669 winning percentage in duals puts her third all-time (min. 30 duals). What’s most impressive about those totals has been how she has earned it; of Smith’s 129 career duals, 53 have come at the number one position and 79 have come at number two. Smith’s 30 career wins at number one is the second-most in program history, and her 58 wins at number two is the most in program history and more than the second- and third-place Gamecocks combined. Her success garnered Smith AVCA Top Flight honors in 2018 and 2019. For her efforts, Smith made the 10-woman CCSA Preseason All-Conference team, which was announced on Feb. 24.

FRESHMAN CLASS GARNERS NATIONAL PRAISE
South Carolina beach volleyball’s 2020 recruiting class received national recognition over the summer, as the Gamecocks’ six-woman class was ranked tenth in the country by Volleyball Magazine. Additionally, three individuals from the class earned a spot in the magazine’s Girl’s Fab 30 team.

Joining the Gamecocks for the 2020-21 school year are Samantha Ansel (Columbia, Ohio), Sophie Bengoechea (San Antonio, Texas), Jillian Gleason (North Bay, Ontario), Alyssa Keller (Winter Garden, Fla.), Hannah Mackenhausen (San Diego, Calif.) and Lizzie Thompson (Roswell, Georgia). 

Bengoechea, Keller and Mackenhausen all made the Fab 30 team. 

In September, Bengoechea and Keller were also named to the AVCA’s High School Beach All-America second team. The Gamecocks now have seven past honorees on the roster and have eight total in the seven years the award has existed.

“It’s exciting to see to see how fast the youth game is growing in beach volleyball, I think this class is talented and ready to make an instant impact on our roster,” head coach Moritz Moritz said. “We love the mix of size, speed and volleyball IQ that these young women bring to the table. This upcoming season may feature the deepest roster our program has ever had, I’m hopeful that our returners will push this group as much as I know this group will push our returners.”

AMBITIOUS 2021 SCHEDULE SET TO CHALLENGE CAROLINA
Already this season, South Carolina has competed in two weekend tournaments where the entire field is ranked in the top-20 nationally. Entering the final weekend of the regular season, the team is 5-7 against ranked opponents, with four of those seven losses coming by 3-2 margins. The five wins are tied for the most in a single season in program history.

QUOTABLE: HEAD COACH MORITZ MORITZ
On the team’s 2021 schedule
“This schedule was challenging to put together, we had to maintain a level of quality opponents that best prepare us to pursue our goal of winning in the postseason while also keeping our team as safe as possible. As we get ready for this season, we are preparing to be the best versions of ourselves because this year, more than any, we need to be ready for unpredictability across the net from us. It’s still fresh in our minds how we were progressing last season before we were stopped. I think it will be cathartic for us when we’re finally standing with our feet in the sand ready to play a match. We are really going to cherish that moment, because we truly can appreciate how fortunate we are to be together as a family playing a sport we all love so much.”

2020 SEASON NOTABLES

• The team played 12 matches before the spring season was ended due to the outbreak of COVID-19, accumulating a 5-7 overall record with 10 of those matches coming against nationally ranked opponents.
• Among those five wins, three came against teams ranked in the top-15 nationally: No. 4 Southern California, No. 14 Long Beach State and No. 10 Stetson.
• 2020 was the first time in program history that the team did not play a single home match.
• Off the sand, the team had its strongest year to date in the classroom. The Gamecocks led the entire South Carolina athletics department in team GPA for both the fall and spring semesters, topping out with a spring GPA of 3.947 that was a program record. Only Georgia State and Stanford can match the Gamecocks’ current streak of AVCA team academic honors – currently six – dating back to the 2014-15 school year.
• South Carolina junior Jess Vastine was recognized by The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) as an All-American Athlete for her efforts with the indoor and beach volleyball teams following the 2020 season. Vastine is the first-ever honoree for the Gamecock indoor program, and second for the beach volleyball program (Carly Schnieder in 2019).

ALL-TIME RECORDS

• South Carolina holds a 129-80 (.617) all-time program record, dating back to 2014.
• The Gamecocks joined the CCSA for volleyball in 2016, and have an all-time conference record of 43-28 (.606).
• In matches at Wheeler Beach, Carolina is 56-20 (.763).
• Moritz Moritz is entering his eighth season as head coach of the Gamecocks, spanning the entire young history of the program. He earned his 100th career win against Texas A&M-Kingsville on April 6, 2019.