Beach Volleyball Hosts Gamecock Challenge,
March 23, 2018
GAMECOCK CHALLENGE
- Tournament Central
- Weekend Notes
- Directions to Wheeler Beach
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina beach volleyball team wraps up a three-week home stretch this weekend with the Gamecock Challenge. The tournament runs Saturday to Sunday, with South Carolina facing FGCU at 2 p.m. and No. 3 Hawai’i at 6 p.m. on Saturday, and wrap the weekend with a 2 p.m. match with TCU and 6 p.m. match with UAB on Sunday. Admission is free for all matches at Wheeler Beach.
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 seven teams currently ranked in the AVCA Coaches Top-20 Poll and three participants in the 2017 NCAA championship.
SCOUTING FGCU
The Eagles are 4-3 coming into the weekend, coming off a tight 3-2 loss to No. 13 FIU on Wednesday in Miami. The dual was swung on a three-set victory for FIU in the 3s. FGCU has been sparked by the addition of key freshmen Kayla Whetstone and Snowy Burnam, who are 5-2 so far this season. Juniors Karissa Rhoades and Katherine Puisis are 5-2 as a pair, primarily in the 3s, and the top pairing of Mackenzie Allen and Amanda Carroll have three wins together. When FGCU and South Carolina met last season, the Eagles won the first set across the top three pairs, but the Gamecocks rallied for the deceptively tight 5-0 sweep.
SCOUTING #3 HAWAI’I
The Rainbow Warriors bring a nine-match win streak and the No. 3 ranking in the nation to Wheeler Beach this weekend. Hawai’i is coming off two wins over Southern Cal, two wins over Grand Canyon and two wins over Nebraska last weekend at the Outrigger Resorts Invitational, and are 14-3 overall with 11 wins over top-20 teams. The team has not lost since dropping a 4-1 decision to Florida State at the East Meets West Challenge on March 10. Hawai’i finished third at the NCAA tournament last season, entering as the five seed before Florida State twice and LSU to make the semifinals. This season, the team has been balanced up and down the lineup; none of the five pairs have winning percentages below .647 and the 3s pairing of Morgan Martin and Lea Monkhouse are 13-2 together and have won the Big West Conference’s Pair of the Week two weekends in a row. Another top pair to watch is Emily Maglio and Ka’iwi Schucht, who are 14-3 together including a 5-0 record in the 1s and a 9-3 mark in the 2s.
SCOUTING TCU
TCU has played a grueling schedule to begin the season, and come into the weekend at 3-12 overall. Of its 15 duals, 11 have come against opponents ranked in the AVCA top 20. The Horned Frogs have yet to capture a top-20 win, but have taken points off No. 4 UCLA, No. 6 Cal Poly, No. 8 Long Beach and No. 11 FIU along the way. Individually, Jaelyn Greene, Jillian Bergeson and Jensyn Bledsoe lead the Frogs with six wins apiece. Bergeson is 3-3 in the 2s and 2-0 in the 3s, Bledsoe is 2-4 at the 3s and 4-3 in the 4s. Greene, who is arguably the team’s top returner after going 21-5 last season, is 6-9 overall but 5-3 at the 2s/3s.
SCOUTING UAB
The Blazers are off to a 5-2 start under first-year head coach Kyra Iannone. At their home tournament last weekend, they defeated Louisiana-Monroe and Mercer before dropping a 4-1 decision to No. 17 Tulane. Kenley Adams and Devon May have been outstanding in the top pairing, bringing a 5-0 record at the 1s with them this weekend. UAB is still ironing out its other pairs, however, with four different combinations in the 2s, and five different in the 3s, 4s and 5s.
SOPHOMORE TRIO NAMED ON CCSA PRESEASON LIST
The CCSA announced its preseason honors on Feb. 22, with three Gamecocks making the cut. Sophomore Katie Smith made the ten-woman All-Conference team, Ali Denney made the watch list, and Franky Harrison won the Fan-Voted Preseason Player of the Year award. Smith won 22 matches last year between the team’s top two pairs, and made the CCSA All-Freshman Team. Denney and Harrison also were 22-match winners, and Denney joined Smith on the All-Freshman list.
GAMECOCK GRAND SLAM NOTABLES
- South Carolina is now 36-13 in duals at Wheeler Beach.
- The Gamecocks are now 7-2 against AVCA Top-20 opponents this season, and 7-1 in conference play.
- The Gamecocks have won three-straight duals with Georgia State, over a span of four weekends, after going through the first four seasons in program history without a win over the Panthers.
- Shannon Williams and Ali Denney have gone three sets with Georgia State in all three meetings this season, winning all three. The pair are now 9-5 overall this season, with five of those wins coming in three sets.
- Tendrich and Perri have won 10 straight matches, the longest win streak by a Gamecock pair this season.
- The Gamecocks went 4-1 in three-set matches for the weekend.
- Avery Davis picked up her first career collegiate win against LSU. Jess Vastine is now 3-3 in her freshman season, after picking up two wins with Davis at the Grand Slam.
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 8th in the latest national poll. Ten Gamecock opponents are currently ranked in the top 20, including six of the top 10.
FUN TO 15
South Carolina has shown a flair for the dramatics early on this season, as 22 of the team’s 70 individual matches across 12 duals have gone to three sets. The Gamecocks have come out on top in 14 of those 22, including a 4-1 record in three-setters at last weekend’s Gamecock Grand Slam tournament.
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.
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 19-5 (Bates 8-2, Perri 11-3).
CHALLENGING SCHEDULE AWAITS GAMECOCKS IN 2018
South Carolina will have its hands full this spring. The Gamecocks schedule includes matches against five of the seven other teams who made the 2017 national tournament field, and face 12 teams that entered the 2018 season in the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s preseason Top-20 poll. Added to that are 13 matches against Coastal Collegiate Sports Association rivals as the Gamecocks enter year three with the conference.
“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 74-48 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 23-11.
- In home matches at Wheeler Beach, Carolina is 36-13 (.733).
- Moritz Moritz is entering his fifth season as head coach of the Gamecocks, spanning the young history of the program. He earned his 50th career win against UAB on March 19, 2017.
