#3 UCLA Beach Beats #4 Florida St. 4-1 (4/1)

A trio of top 10 vs. top 10 matches highlighted Saturday’s national beach schedule, with the higher-ranked team coming out ahead in 2 of those games.

At the FIU Surf and Turf Invitational in Miami, #3 UCLA beat #4 Florida St 4-1. By day’s end, that ran the UCLA school-record winning streak to 17 consecutive duals, though the McNamara twins Megan and Nicole fell at the 1 line for the 2nd straight day, losing a 3-setter to FIU’s Margherita Bianchin/Federica Frasca.

This was the second win this season for UCLA over Florida St, after a 3-2 victory earlier in the year.

In Atlanta, #7 LSU toppled their hosts, #10 Georgia State, with a 3-2 win. That runs the Tigers’ season record to 12-5, and more importantly is a hallmark win over a team with whom they’ll be contending for one of the final spots in the 8 invited to the NCAA tournament in May.

“We had a really good day today. I’m proud of our group for coming together to win both matches. We have been grinding against great competition all year, and I think that confidence from playing great teams over and over pulled us through the Georgia State match,” said LSU head coach Russell Brock.

In the other headlining matchup of the day, #6 Long Beach State knocked off #5 Hawaii 3-2. The two sides split the first 4 matches of the day, which left it down to a juggernaut showdown at the 1 line.

There, Long Beach State’s Nele Barber and Rachel Nieto beat Hawaii’s Morgan Martin and Mikayla Tucker (21-18, 22-20) to seal the day for the Beach. Barber and Nieto are now 17-1 on the season, while Martin and Tucker fall to 13-7.

#12 Arizona State, meanwhile had a little bit of a recovery in Miami after a dismal 0-3 Friday. On Saturday, the Sun Devils went 2-1, beating New Orleans and #14 Florida Atlantic before falling to Florida St. 5-0 in their 3rd match of the morning (a morning that began at 5AM in their home time zone).

“We need to embrace the competition”, said Arizona head coach Steve Walker. “We have so far, against some high profile programs and we’re going to continue to do that and elevate our game in practice like we can and show up ready to take no prisoners.”

The top-ranked USC Trojans won their only match of Saturday with a 5-0 sweep of winless San Francisco. USC was scheduled to play St. Mary’s as well, but that game got moved to Sunday.

Full April 1, 2017 Scoreboard: