April 30, 2017

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina beach volleyball program will be dancing in the sand of Gulf Shores, Alabama, as it was announced Sunday night that the Gamecocks made the field of eight teams for the NCAA tournament. It is the first postseason berth ever for the team, and it will face the defending national champion Southern Cal at 9 a.m. CT Friday morning.

“Unbelievable. I think we’ve been riding a roller coaster all week,” head coach Moritz Moritz said. “We definitely believed that we had done a lot of hard work throughout the entire season, we just weren’t sure if it was enough. We’re just super grateful to be in this position, to be in the conversation first of all and then to take this next step was huge for us.”

The Gamecocks already had a season to remember before Sunday, as they racked up a program-record 23 wins during the regular season. Of those 23 wins, five came against AVCA Top-15 opponents. Individually, Macie Tendrich set the school record for wins in a season with 27, and ten different Gamecocks won 20 or more matches as individuals.

The NCAA tournament will be held on the beach of Gulf Shores, and features a field of eight teams: three bids from the west region, three from the east, and two at-large bids. South Carolina earned the third spot from the east, and will be the eighth overall seed in the field. Southern Cal looks to defending its title as the number one seed.

The tournament is a double-elimination format. The winner of the match will face the winner of the No. 5 Hawai’i and No. 4 Florida State match on Saturday at 3 p.m., and the losers will match up at 1 p.m. Friday afternoon. South Carolina and Southern Cal squared off earlier this season at the Gamecock Grand Slam on March 25, with the Women of Troy winning 5-0.

Stay tuned to GamecocksOnline.com throughout the week for updates on the team’s trip to nationals.