#1 USC Cements Favorite Status With 55th-Straight Win

  0 Braden Keith | April 09th, 2017 | ASUN Conference, Big West, CCSA, College - Beach, Division II, News, Pac-12, West Coast Conference

One major streak continued, but one ended for the #1 USC Trojans beach volleyball team on Saturday. Playing at the USA Volleyball Collegiate Challenge, the Trojans ran their winning streak as a team to 55-consecutive duals.

Their #1 pair of Sara Hughes and Kelly Claes, however, lost their first collegiate match in over 2 years when St. Mary’s sophomores Lindsey Knudsen and Payton Rund knocked them off in 3 sets (17-21, 21-13, 15-13).

Aside from that upset, the weekend was another pedestrian dominating one for the Trojans, who are the defending NCAA champions and heavy favorites to repeat in May.

The biggest battle of the day came in Hawaii, where the Sandbows knocked off #2 Pepperdine on senior day in Honolulu. While Hawaii lost at the #1 line to Delaney Knudsen and Madalyn Roh after the match was decided, they won each of the other 4 lines to take a big 4-1 victory.

“We were just ready to play,” Hawaii head coach Jeff Hall said. “It was our time. And we were resilient. I think (in our previous matchups) when we were down a few points, we started to melt and we didn’t this time. We were firing on all cylinders. We’ve had different combinations of flights play well, but tonight was a night where all of our flights played well. It was a special moment and I think our girls feed off the home crowd and wanted to perform.”

Hawaii now has set a school single-season record for wins with already a 21-5 record as the regular season end draws near.

#9 Stetson also had a big day on senior day, beating Coastal Carolina and Mercer to move to 4-0 in ASUN Conference play.

#5 Long Beach State picked up a pair of 4-1 wins, beating Washington and #8 Arizona by the same score.

Both of their game losses came at the #1 line, where the defending VolleyMob National Pair of the Week Nele Barber and Rachel Nieto lost in straight sets, first to Washington’s indoor stars Crissy Jones and Tia Scambray, and then to Arizona’s Madison and McKenna Witt.

#4 Florida State picked up two more wins against ranked opponents, beating #11 South Carolina and #14 FAU in sweeps.

“Our team came ready to play this weekend,” Florida State head coach Brooke Niles said. “This is what I have been waiting for all year. On all five spots they worked hard and the people who did not play were supporting each other. It was just a great weekend overall. I am proud of how they competed. There were a lot of different changes in the schedule and the way our schedule has been all year I think we are ready for everything and are peaking at the right time.”

With the win over South Carolina, the Gamecocks’ momentum from Friday, where they beat two ranked opponents. Instead, on Saturday, they went 0-2 against two more ranked opponents, though they pushed Georgia State to 5.

Full Saturday, April 8th Scoreboard Below

Winning Team Losing Team Score Winning Team Recap Losing Team Recap
#1 USC #15 Arizona St. 4-1 Link Link
#1 USC St. Mary’s 4-1 Link Link
#1 USC Loyola Marymount 4-1 Link Link
#2 Pepperdine Cal Poly 5-0 Link Link
#6 Hawaii #2 Pepperdine 4-1 Link Link
#3 UCLA Concordia Irvine 5-0 Link Link
#3 UCLA Washington 4-1 Link Link
#4 Florida St. #11 South Carolina 5-0 Link Link
#4 Florida St. #14 FAU 5-0 Link Link
#5 Long Beach State #8 Arizona 4-1 Link Link
#5 Long Beach State Washington 4-1 Link Link
#6 Hawaii Cal Poly 5-0 Link Link
#7 LSU Houston Baptist 5-0 Link Link
#7 LSU Texas A&M Corpus-Christi 4-1 Link Link
#8 Arizona Concordia Irvine 5-0 Link Link
#9 Stetson Coastal Carolina 5-0 Link Link
#9 Stetson Mercer 4-1 Link Link
#10 Georgia State #11 South Carolina 3-2 Link Link
#13 FIU #10 Georgia State 4-1 Link Link
TCU #14 FAU 3-2 Link Link
#15 Arizona St. St. Mary’s 3-2 Link Link
Loyola Marymount #15 Arizona St. 5-0 Link Link
St. Mary’s Loyola Marymount 3-2 Link Link
Tulane Central Arkansas 5-0 Link Link
Tulane Texas A&M Kingsville 5-0 Link Link
College of Charleston Jacksonville 4-1 Link Link
North Florida College of Charleston 3-2 Link Link
UNCW Jacksonville 4-1 Link Link
New Mexico Colorado Mesa 4-1 Link Link
FGCU Coastal Carolina 5-0 Link Link
Eckerd Huntingdon College 5-0 Link Link
Eckerd Stevenson University 5-0 Link Link
Eckerd San Diego City College 4-1 Link Link
Mercer FGCU 3-2 Link Link
North Florida UNCW 3-2 Link Link
Houston Baptist Texas A&M Kingsville 5-0 Link Link
Central Arkansas Texas A&M Corpus-Christi 5-0 Link Link

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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