No Wahine teams in sand championships
Not all that surprised. didn’t feel that their pairs had enough quality wins. And the regional emphasis at the moment limits the teams from the West
http://www.avca.org/sand/championships/2013/
Pool A (Names of Players/School)
1. Lane Carico/Katie Madewell (Georgia State)
2. Kelly Reeves/Meg Norton (UCLA)
3. Jessica Mendoza/Maryna Samoday (Florida International)
4. Bethanie Thomas/Kiriana Hirini (UAB)
5. Hannah Clancy/Katarina Schulz (Pacific)
Pool B(Names of Players/School)
1. Sammie Strausbaugh/Taylor Nyquist (Jacksonville)
2. Kate Stepanova/Ksenia Sukhareva (Florida International)
3. Felicia Arriola/Litara Keil (Loyola Marymount)
4. Dalas Dodd/Jordan Shaw (Saint Mary’s College)
5. Zoe Nightingale/Becca Strehlow (UCLA)
Teams vying for the championship are, by seeds:
1. Pepperdine. 2. Long Beach State. 3. Florida State. 4. USC. 5. North Florida. 6. Louisiana-Monroe.
Surprised Nebraska’s number one team didn’t get chosen, thought they were solid.
Not surprised no UH team was picked either but at least the wahine finished top 5 again.
Until the sport expands and gets NCAA recognition, it will remain a very regionalized sport with only a limited number of pairs and teams competing.
It should reach full championship status next year I’ve been told, a year ahead of schedule, when it will be called Beach and not Sand to be in line with the Olympic term.
Last year 4 teams, 2 from the west and 2 from the south. this year, it was 6, 3 and 3. so there is growth.
Why am I not surprised, but I do know the reason. Enough said. BIG QUESTION, will the Wahines make it to the Beach Championships next year. I think NOT, as long as a certain someone is still heading the program. They will have the athletes to do so though.
Steve, just stop already with the unfounded bashing.
as for making the beach tournament next year, it should be expanded. only 3 schools made it from the West this year, 2 last season. tough to make it. Pepperdine, LBS and SC had quality wins. UH did OK having to juggle pairings as the try not to overuse the indoor players and have more beach-only.
Only if Jane Croson, and Ali Longo, were paired correctly their respective pairs would have been able to get in.
Cindy, I was talking more about the pairs. Pacific, St. Mary’s, and Loyola-Marymount pairs got in, come on. The Wahines could not put together a better pair, to beat the pairs from those teams.
Cindy, if I am not mistaken, all teams have the same number of scholarships. So they to had to use indoor players. Unless, Scott did not use all the scholarships available to him. If so, the question should be, why not?
DF, the wahine pairs did not have the quality wins the other three you mention.
Wong used all of his 3 scholarships. The program used indoor mostly last year when they had 2 scholarships. they are trying to not overuse the indoor and go with sand-only players. .It’s tough to play two sports in college. lot of wear and tear. And the indoor players’ first commitment is to the indoor team.
When going against LMU’s Kell and Arriola at No. 1, Riggs and Longo lost 21-18, 21-17
don’t remember matchups with the other 2 pairs that were selected
so, no, they didn’t have a better pair than the three that got in.
The Pacific pair went 6-1 on the year, they are no. 5 in their pool
couldn’t find a record for the LMU and SMC pairs
As for the UH pairs
Longo-Riggs 9-7, Long-Spieler 9-9
Zalopany-Urban 9-9, Croson-Kastl 4-8, Bell-Olevao 5-8, Olivao-Kastl 2-1, Bell-Croson 2-2, Olevao-Miyashita 1-0, Olevao-Mount 0-1.
Records did not support any team getting a bid, especially when only 5 West pairs got at-large berths.
Sports Animals’ Chris said today something like Tiff Wells did a great job on the UH vs. BYU volleyball match broadcast . We agree, he got an exciting game to broadcast and did a real good job keeping us informed during the game.
Thanks for letting me know. I thought it was his best of his career. He started as a student at Pepperdine, was their sports broadcaster of the year in 2008. He does a lot of prep work. Happy he got a chance to do play-by-play.
Cindy, I still feel that if you paired Croson with Urban, and Longo with one of the other 6 foot players, the results would have been much different. The Wahine may have found themselves playing in the Championship Tournament, along with those 2 pairs. That is my opinion. Just looking at this past Olympic Beach pairs, the ones that did well, had one tall and one short, not both about the same height.
Dedicatedfan gets it. The UH pairings were horrendous!!! In sand volleyball, you are trying to simulate the entire team with two players. I was at the FIU tournament and every single FIU pair was tall/short. For some reason, UH had all tall/tall and short/short pairings and got whipped easily.
Darn, UH volleyball is over and we have to wait another 4 months until it starts again. So now what am suppose to do with my time until then?
It’s gonna be a long summer but there’s always club volleyball. The Junior Olympics are in July. I am gonna be cheering for Tui Tuileta and his Ka Ulukoa team to win gold again.
12 Agree that the best pairs are not 2 players on the shorter side.
but sometimes it’s about chemistry and experience.
Looks like Meredith Hays transferred out of New Mexico State so they won’t be much competition this fall I am guessing
1. I agree. The duo of Robinson and Strange was pretty good. I watched them play a few matches and they were up there with tough teams.
13. they were not beaten easily. a number of matches went to 3 sets.
but agree better to not have 2 shorter players teamed together.
Are you referring to FIU at UH, a match won by UH?
Darn it with Hays leaving. New Mexico state’s rpi will be even worse than I thought, not good.
Kendra Koelsch class 2014, Huntington Beach HS, 6-1, S/RS visiting UH this week per VT.
20. hard to predict NMSU’s RPI. Everyone thought Cal’s would be better last year.
Hays may not be the only one who walked on NMSU, two other top players haven’t been seen at any of their spring matches including Ziegler and Maggie Jo Keffury ,might be as many as 6 who moved on.
22 That’s true Cindy but I don’t think Cal’s rpi hurt the wahine as much as a loss to them did.
Koelsch sounds like a good player and plays on the same club team as Kyra Goodman.
Went to volleytalk this morning and now there’s a rumor Jane Croson is going to Arizona, ugh I hate these rumors.
I believe her boyfriend plays football at Arizona ?
Hawaii’s 6 of 7 (Pepperdine, USC, Long Beach St)losses came against teams that are FULL time beach or do beach full time in the spring. Do you guys think that has something to do with it. dedicated fan- Hawaii beat FIU in the team competition. Did you know that?
I doubt she would leave to be with a boyfriend..
Anyway hope these rumors are just that and she will be a wahine in the fall. it’s awfully late to pick up a transfer or recruit to replace her now.
24. WF. which was my point. they lost to Cal, whose RPI wasn’t as good as expected.
Well if she does go to AZ fans will get a chance to boo her in the fall. 🙂
28. not sure if that is completely true as some of the players are on indoor scholarships and play in spring matches and tournaments. however it is easier to do both when you can drive less than an hour and be at the beach for a tournament. and be back at school same day.
Croson boyfriend is not listed on the Arizona 2013 football roster. Instead he could be in process of transferring to UH.
31. LC, don’t see getting her booed if she came back with another team. UH fans love the game and appreciate players too much. Didn’t hear a lot of boos when Waber was here with SDSU last season.
33. Don’t know who Croson’s boyfriend is so couldn’t say what his plans are.
So just to make things interesting … Arizona is adding sand/beach volleyball in 2014.
I hope she does not pick AZ if she is tranferring, Rubio is a poor coach and I dont want UH to face Jane.
But still hoping she sticks with UH, she might struggle in regular season matches but when it matters most she comes up huge.
Cindy in Waber’s case she transferred because of her dad. If Croson’s friend if he’s still attending Arizona is her reason for leaving, that’s a huge difference IMO.
#34 Facetious – trying to be funny, while being sarcastic at the same time. If someone is being facetious they might come off as rude, but they are trying to make a joke. Facetious can mean trying to be amusing at the most inappropriate of times. Sarcasm is a word with a similar meaning to facetious. Sarcastic and joking are characteristics of being facetious. 😉
#12: Croson and Utban, really? Have you seen Urban play? She’s S-L-O-W and would never be competitive higher than a 4 or 5 flight. Looks like you wouldn’t be any better at pairing.
#16: Experience And chemistry are HUGE in the volleyball world. Indoor or sand. There’s a lot that goes into pairing girls up for sand, not just height. SW had a tough time finding a player even willing to play with Croson. Several attempts were tried and several just flat out said “no”.
I agree that 2 sports is tough in college. It was also tough for the sand-only girls paired with an indoor girl in that they only were at practice on non-indoor days. That was a disadvantage as well. I think as the sport grows, there will be less and less indoor girls on the sand team
38. Do you know the reason why they said “no”.
Pepperdine loses Hill, Fredrick and Racich their three best players.
Long Beach loses Johnon, Ladoux, Minkel and Fontanilla four of their better players.
USC loses Fuller and Robinson, two of their three best players but gains the best high school recruit Sarah Hughes.
UH only loses only Natasha Bell and possibly Croson but is gaining Karissa Cook, Brit Tiegs, Kelsi Delgado, Hannah Rooks, Sydney Shinn and hopefully Hartong, Nikki Taylor, Taylor Higgins and Keani Passi and IVC’s Allie Cook.
I could see duos of
flight 1- Tiegs/Riggs
flight 2- Longo/Hartong
flight 3- K Cook/Delgado
flight 4 – Shinn/ A Cook
Flight 5- Rooks/Taylor or Manu-Olevao/Kastl or Speiler/Long
They will give Pepperdine a run for their money IMO.
38. the indoor and sand teams trained quite a bit together indoor training limited to a couple of weeks and the spring tourneys.
36. Yes Waber had outside circumstances. May be that Croson, if she does leave, has those as well. As stated a number of times, it was tough for her to come to begin with. She is very close to her parents, even closer after her brother was killed and is now an only child. I don’t see the fans booing, regardless of the reason.
Thanks to some football fans who did some detective work Jane’s alleged BF transferred to Hawai’i and is on the spring roster. So rule that one out.
#40 Pepperdine just got a commit from Nikki Lyons a 6’2 MB in Florida who plays on the same club as that McDermott girl that pops up from time to time as a UH recruit. Lyons is going to play both beach and indoor for Pepp.McDermott hasn’t committed yet.
#42 Cindy read #37 I was being facetious about the booing , of course that won’t happen..
LC, hard to know when people are being facetious or not. Takes too much thinking to discern the difference. If you see my mind out there, please send it back. I will reimburse you for shipping.
43 LC. Hogan, when did that happen? Maybe Tsai knows the exact date, didn’t see anything written or announcement made. Interesting.
Cindy, whatever makes her happy, I’m for it. I highly doubt Wahine volley fans will boo her, maybe get on an enemy coach’s back but never a player. Haven’t seen that happen in the 26 years as a season ticket holder.
40. Karissa Cook as in the former Stanford setter is coming to play sand for UH?
I want to thank you all because without the information I get from this blog I would not have any idea of what is going on. Cindy, I still remember sitting with you and Ann, while I kept stats for Dave’s 1982 team. I was the volunteer everything before they had Grad. Assistants. I am sorry that so many of the fans today did not get to see the Bows play in Klum sweat box. That was real Volleyball with side outs and playing out to the ultimate conclusion. Please, all of you out there , keep the dialogue going so those of us stuck on the mainland can still try to follow the various UH teams.
Whoa…..been a way. what is happening with Jane Crosan?
49. Rumors about Jane Croson transferring. Some say she is going to Arizona. Never know what really is happening until its official
see new thread on Croson