Beach Volleyball: FAU wraps up their regular season play
The No. 18 Florida Atlantic University’s beach volleyball team (17-14, 4-2 CUSA) traveled to New Orleans, La. to compete in the NOLA Classic, on April 18 and 19 for their last tournament of the regular season.
The Sandy Owls matched up against the home team Tulane University Green Wave (25-9, 3-2 CUSA), the McNeese State University Cowboys (12-17, 2-6 Southland), the San Jose State University Spartans (12-18, 6-2 Southland), and the Tarleton State University Texans (5-14).
“We’ve been talking about a lot of things leading up to our conference tournament, and I thought we got better in the areas of serving and our defense. It feels like we’re putting a lot of things together,” head coach Steve Grotowski said.
FAU opened their tournament play on April 18 against Tulane at 9:30 a.m. The Owls have a 9-4 overall record against Tulane. The Green Wave won the first matchup and Julie Honzovicova and Kate McKaughlin tied the score 1-1 in the Owls’ second matchup. However, the Owls lost as a team, going 3-2 against Tulane.
“We had a very close game with Tulane. Tulane is always a tough opponent. They’re in our conference and we see them pretty regularly. We just missed out on beating them by a couple points at the fives,” said Grotowski.
Later that day at 2:30 p.m., FAU matched up against McNeese for the first time in program history. The Owls swept the Cowboys with a 5-0 score.
“When we win the serve and pass battle, we win a lot of our matches,” said Grotowski.
On April 19, the Owls faced another unfamiliar face, San Jose State. In the program’s first time meeting, FAU went 5-0. The beach volleyball Instagram celebrated this victory with a caption, “Another Sandy Owl SWEEP.”
Going into the last matchup, the Owls gained confidence in themselves to end the tournament strong.
Similar to the last two games, the Owls again met a new program. FAU faced off against Tarleton State on Saturday at 12 p.m. and went 5–0, marking their third sweep of the tournament.
In the conclusion of the tournament, teammates Ashleigh Adams and Marketa Svozilova achieved a team-best 20-5 record.
In addition, pairs Kendall Mignerey and Shantel Starling, Svozilova and Cameron Knifton, and Mignerey and Maddie Sides, all secured their first wins together this season.
The FAU Sandy Owls will play in the Conference USA Championship as the No. 1 seed starting on April 24 in Youngsville, La.
“I know the team’s super talented and I’m excited to see how they do next week in Youngsville,” said Grotowski.
Emily Harper is a Contributing Writer for the University Press. For more information on this article, you can reach her at emilyharper2022@fau.edu.
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