BATON ROUGE, La. – The HCU beach volleyball team will travel to Louisiana for the team's second tournament of the young season, taking part in the LSU Tiger Beach Challenge at LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium.
The Huskies (1-3) opened the season with a 4-1 win over Central Arkansas last weekend, but lost to three top-ranked opponents in the third annual Coast College Classic.pair of kristen kreimeyer/Christine Gilmore, mary alper/abby bufkin, Kailan Griffiths/paige palmer and tatum lockhart/Rachel Heilbrun In a clean sweep of UCA, Bufkin and Griffith took the No. 2 pair from No. 5 TCU in three sets. gabi axelrod and audrey pierce They also advanced to three sets and five against the Horned Frogs.
HCU is scheduled to play Southern Miss (2-2) on Saturday, March 2 at 9 a.m., then take on No. 7 LSU (3-1) on Sunday, March 3 at 3 p.m. They get an early start against North Alabama (3-1) at 8 a.m. and conclude the tournament at 2 p.m. against the Nebraska Cornhuskers (6-0).
Southern Miss started the season with wins over Eckerd and Mercer, but lost to Florida Gulf Coast and Stetson at the Stetson Spring Fling in DeLand, Florida. The Eagles' No. 1 pair, Ola Chuzik and Sara Mrczek, earned wins over FGCU and Eckerd.
LSU went 3-1 in Houston last weekend with wins over the Huskies, No. 15 Washington and Central Arkansas, but lost to TCU in a 3-2 decision. The Tigers pairing of Riley Allred and Parker Bracken had a perfect 3-0 record in two games last weekend, while Ella Larkin and Ellie Shank had a perfect 4-0 record in games three and four. They performed well and earned CCSA Pair of the Week honors.
North Alabama won three games in the opening weekend of the Green Wave Invitational in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Lions defeated a pair of Southland Conference opponents, Southeastern and New Orleans, as well as Oregon, but lost 3-2 to host Tulane. . Paula Klemperer and Taylor Seney earned Atlantic Sun Pair of the Week honors and went a perfect 4-0 as the team's top pair throughout the weekend.
Nebraska got off to a perfect start to the season with two wins at home against McKendree and also wins over Park, Ottawa, Wayne State and Southwest Baptist. The Cornhuskers won all but one of their first six games, winning 5-0 in the final with Wayne State finishing 4-1. Sunday will see the first-ever matchup between HCU and Nebraska State on the sand.
Next weekend, the Huskies will travel to Tampa, Florida to participate in the Tampa Invitational 2, hosted by the University of Tampa, on Friday and Saturday, March 8th and 9th.
