Ninth-Ranked Gamecocks Host Home Tournament Friday and Saturday
April 12, 2018
PALMETTO INVITATIONAL
- Tournament Central
- Weekend Notes
- Directions to Wheeler Beach
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina beach volleyball team wraps up its regular season this weekend, hosting the Palmetto Invitational with matches at 1 and 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The tournament features duals with Coastal Carolina, Missouri State, and nationally ranked conference rivals Tulane and College of Charleston. It will also be senior night on Friday, with the team’s four graduating seniors being recognized before the team’s 5 p.m. dual with Tulane.
The Gamecocks’ four duals will air live on the SEC Network+ online stream, with Joe Kepler and former Gamecock Paige Wheeler calling the action on center court (pairs one and two). Links to all four broadcasts can be found through the team’s schedule page, or the tournament central link at the top of this story.
SENIOR SALUTE
The Gamecocks will send off four seniors in the final home weekend of the regular season. Four members of the program – four-year starters Julia Mannisto and Macie Tendrich and graduate transfers Leah Perri and Hannah Sorensen – will be honored ahead of the team’s dual with Tulane on Friday at 5 p.m. Tendrich and Mannisto are currently ranked first and second in program history, respectively, for career wins, and Mannisto is in the midst of a career year thanks to a 17-5 overall record this spring. Tendrich is the wins leader with 86 overall coming into the weekend. Perri is in her first season after playing indoor for Clemson, she is 15-7 as Tendrich’s partner this season. Sorensen played beach and indoor at Mercer, and is currently in pharmacy school at South Carolina.
HOW TO GET TO WHEELER BEACH
The team’s state-of-the-art facility can be located behind the South Carolina softball stadium and Cregger Track. Fans can park in the Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center’s parking garage (1300 Heyward St.) or in the parking lot off South Marion Street (See Map Here). Those coming from the parking garage can take the athletics village promenade down to the courts; those in the South Marion lot can enter from below the promenade.
ABOUT THE CCSA
South Carolina joined the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) in October 2015 as the eighth member of the conference. Since then, the CCSA has also added UNC-Wilmington and College of Charleston to bring the 2017 roster to 10 teams, and will add TCU and Southern Mississippi for spring 2019. The CCSA postseason tournament is held at LakePoint Sports Complex in Emerson, Ga. In its brief existence, the CCSA has proven to be one of the country’s strongest beach conferences, boasting eight teams currently ranked in the AVCA Coaches Top-20 Poll and three participants in the 2017 NCAA championship.
SCOUTING COASTAL CAROLINA
Coastal Carolina is 0-12 coming in to the weekend tournament. The Chanticleers played a doubleheader at Mercer on Wednesday lost 4-1 and 3-2 to the Bears. The team has leaned on Carla Cahill and Dora Lulic as its top pair in nine matches this season, but have experimented with four different pairs in the 2s and 5s in the early part of its season. The program is under the direction of Steve Loeswick, who coached the indoor and beach programs at North Florida last season.
SCOUTING TULANE
Tulane is 18-11 overall and winners of six of its last seven duals dating back to the start of April. That success has earned them the No. 19 spot in the latest AVCA poll. Last weekend at its home tournament, the Wave defeated Houston Baptist, Central Arkansas, New Orleans and No. 12 Grand Canyon but fell 3-2 to No. 8 LSU. Leading the team is the pairing of Maddy Mertz and Kaylie McHugh, who are 23-6 at number one so far this season. The duo went 5-0 and took down LSU’s Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss over the weekend and were named the CCSA’s Pair of the Week for their efforts. The rest of the lineup has been in flux by comparison, with four different pairs in the twos, six in the threes, seven in the fours and eight in the fives. The Gamecocks are looking for some redemption on Friday, after Tulane nearly ended their season with a 3-2 upset in pool play at last year’s conference tournament.
SCOUTING MISSOURI STATE
Missouri State is in its first season as a beach volleyball program, and is 7-6 entering the weekend. Leading the team is head coach Terri Del Conte, a former indoor player for the Bears. Fives pair Ivy Reynolds/Lynsey Wright lead the team with eight wins, and Sam Brinkmann and Mikaela Mosquera have a 6-5 overall record in the threes. Missouri State has not competed since March 22, when they swept Ottawa University, 5-0.
SCOUTING COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON
College of Charleston has built off the momentum of making the NCAA tournament during the indoor season, and carried it into the spring. The Cougars already have a new program record for wins, with 13, and have upsets over FIU, FAU and Tulane on their resume, boosting them to the No. 20 spot in the AVCA poll. After some early experimentation, Charleston has settled into a fairly consistent lineup that is highlighted by strong pairs in the three and four positions. Riana Brennan and Kennedy Madison are currently 13-6 at the three, and Allison Beckman and Lauren Freed are 13-5 in the fours to lead the team in wins. Last weekend, CofC blew through the field at a tournament at UNC Wilmington, losing just one match in a 4-0 weekend.
SURF `N TURF NOTABLES
- Shannon Williams won her 50th career match after defeating TCU on March 30. Williams is just the fifth Gamecock in program history to reach the milestone.
- Caroline Skaff moved into the fours pairing for the FIU match after the team lost Katie Smith to illness, and the sophomore stepped up with her second career win.
- Katie Smith and Carly Schnieder each picked up their team-leading 17th wins of the season during the weekend, moving them up to third for most wins in a season by a sophomore.
- Head coach Moritz Moritz celebrated his birthday with career victory number 75 on Saturday. Moritz has led the Gamecocks since the program’s inception in 2014.
- Smith and Cadie Bates are now 14-3 as a pair this season. That is the second-best win total for a twos pair in program history. Mannisto and Schnieder (15 wins) moved up to second in program history for wins by a threes pair and Perri/Tendrich moved up to third for wins by a threes pair (14).
SCHNIEDER RECOGNIZED BY NCSA
Sophomore Carly Schnieder earned beach volleyball’s inaugural All-American Strength and Conditioning Athlete of the Year award on April 5. The National Strength and Conditioning Association recognizes student-athletes at the Division I, II and III levels as well as high school across 22 sports. Beach volleyball was added for 2018, and Schnieder is the lone beach volleyball representative. The award recognizes athletic accomplishments that reflect the time dedicated to strength training and conditioning, and also factors in academic strength and community service. Nominees are put up for consideration by their team’s strength and conditioning coaches.
GAMECOCKS IN THE NATIONAL RANKS
The team earned its first-ever ranking by the AVCA on March 6 of last season. The Gamecocks are currently ranked 9th in the latest national poll. Twelve Gamecock opponents are currently ranked in the top 20, including numbers one, two and three, six of the top 10, and three other opponents receiving votes.
FUN TO 15
South Carolina has shown a flair for the dramatics this season, as 32 of the team’s 110 individual matches across 32 duals have gone to three sets. The Gamecocks have come out on top in 22 of those 32, including a 4-0 record in three-setters at the team’s most recent tournament in Miami.
BATTLE-TESTED SOPHOMORE CLASS KEY TO 2018 SUCCESS
The 2017 freshman class might very well go down as one of the best in school history, as four first-year student-athletes made the starting lineup and all four – Ali Denney (#30), Franky Harrison (#33), Carly Schnieder (#23) and Katie Smith (#50) won over 20 dual matches as individuals. Denney and Smith were named to the CCSA All-Freshman team, and Smith, Schnieder and Harrison joined with Denney to match South Carolina’s freshman record for wins in a season, with 22. In the summer, Smith and her partner Adrianna Culbert earned a bid to the USA Volleyball Collegiate Beach Championships, where they advanced out of pool play. Adding to the group early this season was Hannah Edelman, who paired with Harrison went 8-3 overall at the fives before suffering a season-ending injury, and Caroline Skaff, who has built off a strong exhibition season in 2017 to be an important asset on the travel roster with two starts at the number four pairing so far.
GRAD CHANCE U
South Carolina welcomed its first grad transfer in 2015, when Jade Hayes came to Columbia from UCF. Last season, former indoor All-Americans Katie Zimmerman (Wichita State) and Adrianna Culbert (Colorado State) were vital pieces to the team’s NCAA Tournament run. The three left South Carolina with a combined record of 90-45 in dual matches while competing on the team’s top pairs.
This season, a new group of indoor standouts will have a chance to leave their mark on the program. Leah Perri (Clemson) trained with the team in the fall after a career with the Tigers saw her make All-ACC teams twice. Cadie Bates (Duke) is coming off a career year with the Blue Devils this fall, and played in 83 career matches indoors. Lydia Dimke (Creighton) was a 2016 AVCA All-American for the Blue Jays, and led the team to the Elite Eight of the 2016 NCAA tournament and the No. 9 overall seed in the tournament this past season. Despite the setback of losing Dimke to injury in the opening dual of the year, South Carolina’s two active grad transfers are currently 29-11 (Bates 14-4, Perri 15-7).
GAMECOCKS TACKLING A TOUGH SCHEDULE IN 2018
South Carolina has stepped its strength of schedule so far this spring. The team has faced five of the seven other teams who made the 2017 national tournament field, and 13 of its 22 matches have come against top-20-ranked teams. The Gamecocks are 8-5 in those matchups, highlighted by their first wins ever against Georgia State, Stetson and LSU.
“There’s no question that this is a challenging schedule, but we know that we need to compete against the best teams in the country to reach our ultimate goal of making it back to the NCAA tournament,” said head coach Moritz Moritz. “We’re going to do what we’ve done since day one — take this season point-by-point and match-by-match and trust one another to get back to where we want to be.”
ALL-TIME RECORDS
- South Carolina holds a 78-52 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 23-13.
- In home matches at Wheeler Beach, Carolina is 38-15 (.717).
- Moritz Moritz is entering his fifth season as head coach of the Gamecocks, spanning the young history of the program. He earned his 75th career win against FGCU on March 24, 2018.
