VolleyMob’s Year in Volleyball: February 2017

As 2017 winds down, VolleyMob is taking a look back at the past year in volleyball with a month by month recap of the year that was. February included collegiate and international hirings, site announcements for major international events, a ton of collegiate men’s volleyball and the first FIVB Beach event of the year. 

• The beach game continued to grow as Division II’s Florida Southern announced it was adding a team for the 2017-18 season.
• USA Volleyball gave a glimpse into the future with the unveiling of the beach volleyball venue for the 2024 Olympic Games bid for Los Angeles. Later in the year, the Olympics were awarded to the city for 2028.
• In men’s collegiate action, No. 1 Ohio State continued its dominance, extending its school record win streak to 33 matches with a sweep of Ball State.
• The schedule was set for the 2017 FIVB 2017 calendar, with the final piece coming in the announcement that Poland would act as host for the Men’s Club World Championships in December.
• In one of our most read stories of the year and in the lead up to Super Bowl LI, we found that Stanford’s NCAA Championship team was taller than both Super Bowl teams.
• In the international scene, Russia announced two-year contracts for its new men’s and women’s coaches, Sergey Shlyapnikov and Vladimir Kuzyutkin.
• Hawai’i began a search for a new head coach for its women’s program, looking to replace Dave Shoji, who announced he was taking a leave of absence to battle prostate cancer.
• In the German Cup finals, Allianz MTV Stuttgart won the women’s title and VfB Friedrichshafen grabbed the men’s crown.
• Crossover play from indoor to beach brought Dutch women’s national teamer Manon Nummerdor-Flier acclaim as she made her beach debut at the Fort Lauderdale Major.
• On February 9, we celebrated the birth of the sport of volleyball, created by William G. Morgan in 1895.
• As another sign of the addition of its newest sport, the NCAA has added beach volleyball to its Hall of Champions in Indianapolis.
• The University of Illinois announced the hiring of Chris Tamas, formerly an assistant at Nebraska, as the eighth head coach in program history. Tamas replaced Kevin Hambly, who accepted the head coaching job at Stanford in January.
• In the first sign of things to come, BYU’s Ben Patch sat out for a match against USC on Feb. 11. Patch would miss several matches throughout the season due to injury.
• Saymon Barbosa and Magliano Alvaro won the FIVB Fort Lauderdale Major besting countrymen Evandro and Loyola in the final. Americans Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena won an All-American bronze medal match, topping John Hyden and Ryan Doherty.
• Brazil’s Larissa and Talita win women’s gold over fellow Brazilians Agatha and Duda in Fort Lauderdale.
• In maybe the most hard-fought set of the men’s volleyball season, No. 8 Stanford and No. 12 UCSB played to a 43-41 score in set 2 of an eventual Stanford victory. The Gauchos, however, won the marathon set.
• Lube Civitanova captured its fifth Italian Cup championship topping Diatec Trentino.
• Germany hired Andrea Giani as its new head men’s coach. The Italian player and two time Olympic medalist, most recently coached the Slovenian men’s team until his contract ran out in July 2016.
• Unranked USC rocked the men’s volleyball world, downing No. 6 Stanford via sweep, despite utilizing just seven players in the match due to injuries.
• Russians Nikita Liamin and Viacheslav Krasilnikov grabbed gold at the men’s only Kish Island Three-Star FIVB World Tour event.
• Hawaii named its women’s volleyball coach, picking Roby Ah Mow-Santos, to replace Hall of Fame coach Dave Shoji, who officially retired following a leave of absence and a cancer diagnosis.
• Rexona-Sesc Rio de Janeiro punched its ticket to the Club World Championships in May with its third-straight continental title.
• The Dutch women’s national team found its new leader in American Jamie Morrison, who spent the last two years as an assistant coach with Turkish club VakifBank Istanbul.
• For the first time this season, the defending NCAA Champions from Ohio State were pushed to a 5th set, but the Buckeyes won their 40th-straight match, tying the MIVA Conference record, and the third-longest streak in history.
• Nanjing, China was announced as the host site for the 2017 FIVB World Grand Prix Finals, which were set for August.
• A record 28 teams joined the competition for the Men’s African Club Championship, although a Men’s Club World Championship spot was not in the cards for the victor.