Beach Volleyball Brings Elite Competition to Hilton Head Island

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – Top beach programs from coast to coast make its way down to the South Carolina Lowcountry this weekend, as No. 17 South Carolina (1-3) hosts the Hilton Head Island Invitational this Saturday and Sunday. All five teams competing are ranked in the top 20 nationally in various polls, with three – Florida State, Southern Cal and Grand Canyon – ranked in the top-10 of the latest coaches poll.

Attendance for fans is free all weekend, matches will be held on Coligny Beach and directions to the courts can be found HERE. Matches are scheduled for every two hours starting from 8:30 a.m. each day, the Gamecocks will play at 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

SEMINOLE BEACH BASH NOTABLES

• The team went 1-3 in the opening weekend of action, with all three losses coming to nationally ranked opponents.
• It was a tough-luck weekend for the team, which went a combined 1-7 in three-set matches in the four duals, including three losses in three sets in the 4-1 loss to No. 7 Cal Poly and two losses in three sets in the 3-2 loss to No. 16 TCU.
• Four Gamecocks made their South Carolina debut in the opening weekend – freshmen Skylar Allen and Kaeli Crews, and graduate transfers Madison Brabham and Morgyn Greer.
• Brabham and Hannah Edelman were the standout performers of the weekend for Carolina, going 3-1 overall. The pair notched wins over Cal Poly, Houston Baptist and TCU.

VETERAN STAFF GUIDES NEW-LOOK ROSTER INTO 2020
As year seven of Gamecock beach volleyball gets underway, the team will have a new look to the roster. Almost half of the roster is comprised of newcomers (eight total, six true freshmen), and 11 of the 21 members of the team are either in their first or second season. 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 coaching staff.

SCOUTING #2 FLORIDA STATE
Despite a 7-0 record in their opening weekend, the Seminoles moved back a spot and sit at No. 2 in the AVCA’s coaches poll. Junior Alaina Chacon earned preseason All-America team recognition, and Madison Fitzpatrick – her 2019 partner – joined her as a preseason All-American on CollegeBeachVB.com’s list. Kate Privett, Molly McBain and Sara Putt round out the top returners, and the Seminoles also put three freshmen on the AVCA High School Beach Volleyball All-American Team: Madelyne May Anderson (first team), Liz Waters-Leiga (second team) and Kera Rutz (second team).

SCOUTING #4 SOUTHERN CAL
The Women of Troy are opening their season in Hilton Head this weekend, starting a new era under first-year head coach Dain Blanton. Southern Cal is a three-time NCAA champion and made the national championship last season before falling to UCLA. The team hasn’t lost much ground from 2019, returning five players who won 20 or more matches last season (Abril Bustamante, Sammy Slater, Haley Hallgren, Joy Dennis and Maja Kaiser) while also adding a talented crop of newcomers. The team’s biggest loss didn’t come from graduation – Bustamante’s 2019 partner Tina Graudina will likely take an Olympic redshirt this spring to prepare to represent her home country of Latvia at the 2020 Tokyo games.

SCOUTING #10 GRAND CANYON
The ‘Lopes moved up from 14th to 10th in the AVCA coaches poll after a 4-0 opening weekend. The team defeated No. 11 Cal, Saint Mary’s, Santa Clara and San Jose State. GCU finished 2019 with a 20-11 record, including five wins over ranked opponents. Leading the team early in 2020 are Bella Bauman and Teagan DeFalco in the top flight, and Jessica Stansfield and Hannah Towne in the second. Bauman and DeFalco went undefeated at the 1s in the opening weekend, Stansfield and Towne went 3-1.

SCOUTING COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON
This will be the first weekend for the Cougars, who had a breakout season in 2019 with a 20-4 overall record. The team will have some holes to fill in its initial lineup, as it lost six primary starters – most notably its entire number two pair Devon Rachel/McKala Rhodes (22-2 record), Kennedy Madison (18-6 at number one) and its entire fives pairing of Katja Ehlers/Taylor Foley (18-3 record). Lauren Freed is the top returner, pairing with Madison on the top court in 2019, the pairing of Amani Dunston/Mandy Napierla found success together (8-6 at number three) and as individuals last season, and Logan Manusky earned AVCA Top Flight status with the now-graduated Allison Beckman in the fours last season. 

QUOTABLE: HEAD COACH MORITZ MORITZ
On bringing a tournament to Hilton Head Island…
“One of our goals as a team is to spread the love for the sport and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to bring South Carolina beach volleyball to Hilton Head Island. To see a home-grown talent like Hannah (Edelman) have the experience of playing collegiate beach volleyball in her home town will be special.” 

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. South Carolina stands at 17th in Feb. 24 coaches poll, marking 32 consecutive polls in a row. Coming into the season, 14 Gamecock opponents were ranked in the top 20, including eight of the top ten, and three other 2020 opponents are receiving votes.

VASTINE LOOKS TO BUILD OFF SOLID SOPHOMORE SEASON
Junior Jess Vastine may very well be the most seasoned student-athlete South Carolina has seen as a department, as the Wittman, Ariz. native begins her sixth season as a Gamecock in the spring. Vastine is the team’s lone crossover athlete, playing in all 114 sets for the indoor team this past fall. She set career highs in every major statistical category indoors, became just the fourth different Gamecock in the last decade to surpass 200 kills and 200 digs in a season, and helped the team reach 20 wins and the second round of the NCAA tournament.

The indoor success came on the heels of Vastine’s breakout season on the beach in 2019. In year two, she made the biggest year-to-year jump in program history, going from five wins in 2018 as a freshman to 19 wins as a sophomore. Of those 19 wins, 16 came in the No. 4 pair, six came against conference rivals and four came against ranked opponents. Vastine’s signature win came in the team’s 3-2 upset of No. 2 Southern Cal, when she teamed with Hannah Edelman to win a three-set match at the fours. She ended the spring of 2019 on an even hotter streak, winning seven of the last nine matches, highlighted by wins over No. 20 TCU and No. 16 Georgia State.

SENIOR QUARTET LEADS THE CHARGE IN YEAR FOUR
While the team lost some important leaders from 2019’s roster, four seniors are entering their final seasons with plenty of experience to fill those shoes. Franky Harrison, Carly Schnieder and Katie Smith have been in the starting lineup since day one on campus, and each enter 2020 with over 50 career dual wins. The fourth four-year member, Hannah Edelman, emerged in the lineup as a sophomore and owns a career winning percentage of .688 with 33 dual wins. Smith’s 68 dual wins through three seasons puts her within striking range of Macie Tendrich’s program record of 93; Tendrich and Shannon Williams are the only Gamecocks to have surpassed 75 career wins. Schnieder’s 64 wins ranks her fifth in program history, and Harrison’s 52 dual wins is good for seventh.

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 the beach game. Entering 2020, the team’s seven grad transfers – Jade Hayes (UCF), Katie Zimmerman (Wichita State), Adrianna Culbert (Colorado State), Leah Perri (Clemson), Cadie Bates (Duke), Lydia Dimke (Creighton) and Lauryn Gillis (Wisconsin) have accumulated a combined record of 190-90 (.679).    

This season, two new indoor standouts make their way to Wheeler Beach. 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 Gators reached the National Semifinal in 2017 and Sweet 16 in 2018 and 2019, and won 26 or more matches in each of Greer’s four seasons.

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 68 dual wins through her first three seasons, already ranking her fourth in program history, and her .680 winning percentage in duals puts her second all-time (min. 30 duals). What has been impressive about those totals has been how she has earned it; of Smith’s 100 career duals, 35 have come at the number one position and 64 have come at number two. Smith’s 20 career wins at number one is the second-most in program history, and her 47 wins at number two is far and away the program’s best. Her success at the top of the lineup has garnered Smith AVCA Top Flight honors in 2018 and 2019.

FRESHMEN CLASS OFFERS KEY DEPTH FOR 2020 ROSTER
Six true freshmen will press South Carolina’s returners for playing time this spring, with each bringing a unique background and skill set to the roster. Ashley Brasfield and Kaeli Crews were named to the AVCA’s High School Beach All-America teams, which were released in September. There are now five past or present honorees on the roster, and South Carolina has six total in the six years the award has existed – Brasfield, Crews, Abby Carroll, Julia Mannisto, Carly Schnieder and Katie Smith.

Brasfield, a native of Kennesaw, Ga., played indoor at Harrison High School and club at Southern Sand Select. She won three tournaments as a high school senior and finished no worse than fifth in any tournament in 2019. Crews comes to South Carolina from Winter Garden, Fla. and played club for Cape Coast. Aside from helping her high school teams win indoor and beach state championships, Crews won the USA Volleyball Florida State championship and placed top-10 in 11 tournaments during the 2018-19 season. 

Skylar Allen (Callisburg, Texas) lettered in four sports in high school along with a stellar club beach resume; she ended her prep career by winning the Rox VB National Championship in the summer of 2019. Fellow Texan Sophie Manson (McKinney, Texas) played in AVPFirst beach tournaments with current teammate Abby Carroll and also trained with USAV High Performance for indoor, competing with it at U19 world trials in 2017. Peyton Gray (Herndon, Va.) is also a veteran indoor athlete through high school, but also claimed top-three finishes at the AVP, USAV, ESPL and AAU junior national tournaments for beach. Last, but not least, is local product Eliza Epps (Lexington, S.C.), who played at River Bluff High School and brings high athleticism to the sand. 

AMBITIOUS 2020 SCHEDULE SET TO CHALLENGE CAROLINA
Loaded schedules have become the standard for South Carolina, and 2020 may go down as its toughest yet. Currently, 14 Gamecock opponents are ranked in the AVCA coaches top 20 poll, including eight of the top ten, and three other 2020 opponents are receiving votes. Looking back at the eight-team NCAA tournament field from 2019, the Gamecocks are set to face six of the participants, including national finalist Southern Cal and national semifinalist LSU. In total, South Carolina’s 29-game schedule pits it against teams that are currently ranked 17 times.

“I’m excited about this year, we have a deep roster where any one person can be equally successful no matter the position in the lineup, nor the partner they pair with,” head coach Moritz Moritz said. “We need to step up to the challenge that this schedule offers. The sport is deeper than it’s ever been, so we need to enter every match knowing that we need to be locked in no matter who we face.”

ALL-TIME RECORDS

• South Carolina holds a 107-69 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 32-22.
• In home matches at Wheeler Beach, Carolina is 51-17 (.735).
• Moritz Moritz is entering his seventh 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.