March 7, 2014
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina sand volleyball team is set to open its inaugural season on Saturday at the North Florida Invitational.
The two-day event will be held at the St. Augustine Beach Pier in St. Augustine, Fla. Admission to the invitational is free.
The Gamecocks will take on host North Florida in their first-ever match on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and will wrap up the day against Jacksonville at 3:30. Carolina is slated to face Florida International (12:30 p.m.) and Florida Atlantic (3:30 p.m.) on Sunday.
Following the North Florida Invitational, the Gamecocks will head to Atlanta, Ga., for Georgia State’s event. South Carolina will face Mercer on Tuesday at 3:15 and close out the day against the Panthers at 5. For updates on the Gamecocks, be sure to follow @GamecockSandVB on Twitter.
South Carolina Overview
• The Gamecocks enter their inaugural season under the direction of head coach Moritz Moritz, who served as an assistant on the Carolina indoor staff the previous two seasons.
• South Carolina was the first SEC school to add the sport and 31st overall.
• The Gamecocks currently have a roster size of 18 players. Three of those individuals – Paige Wheeler, Litsa Darby and Megan Kent – played indoor volleyball for Carolina in 2012 before making the transition to sand only players this year.
• Twelve of the 18 players are sand only players, while six – Mikaela Christiaansen, Erin Neuenfeldt, Sarah Blomgren, Jordan Wilson-Talmadge, Helen Récaborde and KoKo Atoa-Williams – are crossover players from the indoor program.
• South Carolina boasts a diverse roster as it has players from 12 different states, including Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maryland and New Jersey.
Projecting the Lineup
• South Carolina heads into its first match with junior Paige Wheeler and senior Megan Kent as the No. 1 pair in its projected lineup. At No. 2 is junior Mikaela Christiaansen and Sarah Blomgren, followed by sophomore Jordan Loney with freshman Jade Vitt, sophomore Litsa Darby with freshman KoKo Atoa Williams and freshman Chynna Ratner with freshman Erin Neuenfeldt.
Scouting North Florida
• The Ospreys went 16-5 in 2013, including an 8-0 mark in conference play to claim their second-straight Atlantic Sun Conference title.
• North Florida earned an automatic bid to the AVCA Sand National Championships and was eliminated with losses to Florida State and Southern California.
• UNF returns it’s top pair of Anna Budinska and Dagnija Medina, a two-time All-Atlantic Sun duo. The pair went 16-11 overall last season and 12-9 in duals.
Scouting Jacksonville
• The Dolphins went 7-17 a year ago.
• Jacksonville is coached by Michelle Collier, who was an assistant for the South Carolina indoor program from 2010-11.
• The Dolphins top pair of Taylor Nyquist and Sammie Strausbaugh return after going 25-3 overall last season, including 16-2 in duals.
Scouting Florida International
• FIU enters the season ranked No. 9 in the AVCA Preseason Poll after going 6-5 a year ago.
• The Panthers return one of their top pairs from a year ago in Jessica Mendoza and Maryna Samoday, who went 22-5 overall, including 2-0 at No. 1 and 6-1 at No. 2.
• Mendoza and Samoday made it to the semifinals of the AVCA Sand Championships Pairs Tournament.
Scouting Florida Atlantic
• The Owls went 0-10 a year ago.
• Florida Atlantic is led by head coach Brooke Kohler.
• The Owls currently have 11 players on the roster, including seniors Megan Knapp, Darija Sataric and Mandy McIntosh.
Scouting Mercer
• The Bears went 0-17 during their inaugural season a year ago.
• Mercer is coached by Damian Elder, who served five seasons as associate head coach of the South Carolina indoor program from 2006-10.
• senior Jamie Duffy returns to lead the Bears in 2014. Duffy partnered at No. 1 with both Madison Petsos and Jenna Katona a year ago.
Scouting Georgia State
• Georgia State went 8-9 in its inaugural season in 2013.
• The Panthers collected wins over AVCA National Championship participants North Florida and Louisiana-Monroe.
• Georgia State’s top pair of Lane Carico and Katie Madwell went 33-8 at No. 1 and advanced to the semifinals of the AVCA Sand Championships Paris Tournament. With Carico gone, Madewell returns for her senior season and will look to lead the Panthers’ top pair.
Fastest Emerging Sport in NCAA History
• Sand volleyball is the fastest growing NCAA sport ever.
• The sport had just 16 teams in its inaugural season in 2012. A total number of 41 Division I schools have decided to add the sport since then.
• Now that the number of schools is over 40, the NCAA will sponsor an NCAA Championships when those programs have sponsored the sport for two years.
There’s a Difference?
• Although sand volleyball and indoor volleyball have plenty of similarities, they also have several differences, including a court size of 16m x 8m compared to 18m x 9m.
• Each team event is called a dual and consists of five pairs for each team.
• A winner is determined when a team wins three of the five pairs matches. Each pairs match is a best-of-three format. The first two sets are rally scoring to 21 points with the third set to 15 if necessary.
• There is no open-hand tipping in sand volleyball.
• The block touch does count as the first of three allowable touches in sand volleyball.
• With the weather elements, pairs swap courts every seven points in a 21-point set and every five points in a 15-point set.
• Sand coaches are only allowed to give instructions to players during timeouts and between sets.
