USC Beach Volleyball Shoots For 5th Straight Crown
Allen Wallace
UCLA is top seed this year; USC is No. 5 for NCAA beach volleyball tournament
The Bruins are seeking their first national title since 2019, while fifth-seeded USC is trying to win its fifth straight this week in Gulf Shores, Alabama. LMU is seeded fourth and Long Beach State is seeded ninth.
UCLA is the top seed and USC is seeded fifth for the 16-team NCAA beach volleyball tournament, which begins Friday morning in Gulf Shores, Alabama. (Photo by Jan Kim Lim, UCLA Athletics)
OC Register staff — Top-ranked UCLA (30-6) received the No. 1 seed for the three-day NCAA beach volleyball tournament on Sunday, while four-time defending national champion USC was seeded fifth.
The Bruins will face 16th-seeded Chattanooga (26-5) on Friday at 8 a.m. PT when the single-elimination tournament begins in Gulf Shores, Alabama. USC (26-10) will face Atlantic Sun champion #17 North Florida (25-10) on Friday at 7 a.m.
Loyola Marymount (35-6) is the No. 4 seed and will face No. 14 Florida Atlantic (21-14) at 6 a.m., while Long Beach State (27-11) is seeded ninth and will open against No. 8 seed Florida State (25-12) at 9 a.m.
Other first-round matches include: No. 2 TCU (28-5) vs. No. 15 Georgia State (22-16) at 10 a.m., No. 7 Texas (27-9) vs. No. 10 Cal (27-9) at 11 a.m., No. 3 Stanford (31-8) vs. No. 14 Boise State (23-11) at noon and No. 6 Cal Poly (29-7) vs. No. 11 LSU (24-12) at 1 p.m.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played on Saturday, with the championship match scheduled for Sunday at 7:30 a.m.
The Bruins won back-to-back NCAA titles in 2018 and 2019 and have been the runner-up three times, with two third-place finishes. UCLA has lost to USC in the final in three of the past four years.
USC won its first national title in 2015 (AVCA), then won the first two NCAA titles in 2016 and 2017 before its run of four straight.
GULF SHORES, ALABAMA – MAY 5: USC’s Olivia Bakos #5, Nicole Nourse #42 and Audrey Nourse #24 celebrate after defeating UCLA during the Div I Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship held at Gulf Shores Public Beach on May 5, 2024 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. (Photo by Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
No school other than USC or UCLA has won the title in the NCAA era, with Florida State a three-time runner-up.
Championship History (Recent):
2024:USC (3-0 win over UCLA)
2023:USC (3-2 win over UCLA)
2022:USC (3-1 win over Florida State)
2021:USC (3-1 win over UCLA)
2020:Championship canceled due to COVID-19
2019:UCLA (3-0 win over USC)
Eight of the 16 teams in this year’s field received automatic berths by winning their conference championships.
The tournament will be played in single-elimination duals with 10 athletes split into five pairs from each team. The dual meet match is formatted in five best-of-three sets, pairs matches, with each pairs match being worth one point.
ESPN2 will provide live coverage on Friday and Saturday, with the championship dual on Sunday to air on ESPN.
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