The focus of the second major weekend of the 2017 NCAA women’s beach volleyball season was firmly upon the state of California, where the Stanford Invite was held in the north and the East meets West Invitational was in the south.
The top-ranked and defending NCAA Champions from USC remained perfect at 4-0 on the season with wins over #12 Florida International and #10 LSU. The Trojans aren’t backing down from the challenges in their title defense – all four opponents so far have been ranked in the top 12 nationally, and next week they’ll take on a rematch of last year’s title game against #2 Florida State.
USC hasn’t swept any of their matches so far, but their #1 line of Sara Hughes and Kelly Claes are 4-0 this season.
In the same tournament, #4 UCLA beat two ranked opponents: #10 LSU and #12 FIU, to recover from an 0-2 result the prior Saturday. Included in this weekend’s games was a 3-2 nail-biter over LSU, who had a 2-1 lead before the Bruins’ late comeback.
Up north, the highly-touted Stanford team lost their first two games of the year, falling to their bay area rivals Cal and Saint Mary’s in back-to-back games.
A silver-lining for Stanford is that their #1 line of freshmen Kathryn Plummer and Jenna Gray went 2-1 after starting the season just 1-3 in their games. Courtney Bowen and Kat Anderson did lose their first game of the season, however, falling 2-0 to Cal’s Gustafson/Neff pair.
Even further west, Hawaii moved to 8-0 after a clean sweep through their own Queen’s Cup tournament. On Saturday, that included a pair of wins over #9 Stetson who are now just 2-7 on the season. Those 7 losses already put them on the bubble to miss qualifying for their second-straight NCAA tournament barring a historic run to finish the season.
In the east, playing at the Gamecock Challenge, Ssouth Carolina picked up wins over Mercer and #11 Grand Canyon to move to 6-0 on the season. On the downside is that their only loss in a pair of 4-1 decisions was at the 1 line, where Katie Smith and Katie Zimmerman went 0-2 for their first two losses of the season.
And finally, a special congratulations to Jacksonville State, who with a 5-0 win over Huntingdon go the first match victory in program history on Saturday.
Complete Saturday Results
| Winning Team | Losing Team | Score | Winning Team Recap | Losing Team Recap |
| #1 USC | LSU | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #1 USC | #12 FIU | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #2 Florida St. | #6 Long Beach St. | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #2 Florida State | Cal Poly | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| #4 UCLA | #12 FIU | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #4 UCLA | #10 LSU | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #5 Hawaii | #9 Stetson | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| #5 Hawaii | #9 Stetson | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| #5 Hawaii | Loyola Marymount | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #5 Hawaii | Loyola Marymount | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| #6 Long Beach State | #7 Georgia State | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| Cal Poly | #7 Georgia State | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| #8 Arizona | #12 Arizona St. | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| #11 Grand Canyon | Jacksonville | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| #15 South Carolina | #11 Grand Canyon | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| St. Mary’s | #14 Stanford | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| #15 South Carolina | Mercer | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Cal | #14 Stanford | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Cal | Utah | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Florida Atlantic | Tulane | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| Tulane | La. Monroe | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Sacramento St. | San Jose State | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| Loyola Marymount | Stetson | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| Boise State | San Francisco | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| San Jose State | Boise State | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| Mercer | UAB | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Spring Hill College | Eckerd | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Eckerd | Austin Peay | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Houston Baptist | Austin Peay | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| Jacksonville | UAB | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Florida Atalantic | New Orleans | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| New Orleans | Huntingdon | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| Jacksonville State | Huntingdon | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| La. Monroe | Jacksonville St. | 5-0 | Link | Link |
| St. Mary’s | Utah | 4-1 | Link | Link |
| Spring Hill | Houston Baptist | 3-2 | Link | Link |
| Sacramento State | San Francisco | 5-0 | Link | Link |
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