2017 West Coast Conference Beach Volleyball Tournament
- April 21-22, 2017
- Santa Monica, California
- Double-Elimination Bracket Tournament
- Conference Site
- Complete Day 1 Results
1-seed Pepperdine and 3-seed Loyola Marymount escaped the first two rounds of the 2017 WCC Beach Volleyball Tournament unscathed and will place at 9AM on Saturday morning. The winner will advance to the conference championship round. The loser will not be eliminated, but instead will have to play the winner of St. Mary’s and Santa Clara for the right to try and beat Pepperdine, the 3rd-ranked team in the country, twice eon Saturday afternoon. That would not be an enviable task, given that it would be that losing team’s 3rd and 4th matches of the day.
Pepperdine had a bye in the first round, and rolled through Pacific 5-0 in their first game of the weekend.
On the other side of the bracket, Loyola Marymount swept Santa Clara 5-0, and then upset St. Mary’s 3-2 thanks to wins at the 3, 4, and 5 lines. While St. Mary’s rolled through the top 2 lines (Rund/Knudsen def. Sponcil Slattery 21-16, 21-18; Chase/Bible def. Whitford/Estes 21-16, 21-11), the nature of team beach volleyball means that LMU’s depth took the day, even though St. Mary’s got the best of the top two matchups.
That relegates St. Mary’s to play 6th-seeded Santa Clara in the second-chance bracket: a team they’ve beat 4-1 and 5-0 in their two matchups this season. A win there would lead to a game against the loser of Pepperdine – LMU, which could mean another matchup with LMU. Based on Friday’s scores, St. Mary’s best chance at picking up another point will be at the 3 line, where Mary Hernandez and Alexis Salmons were swept by Jesse Prichard/Sara Kovac in the first matchup, but rallied to come within 2 in the second set.
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