#3 TCU vs #4 USC 3-18-2025 BVB

Dear Readers~

    Welcome to today's coverage of TCU (Texas Christian University) taking on USC (University of Southern California) that took place on Tuesday, March 18th. The tournament they played in was called the FAU (Florida Atlantic University) Beach Invitational held in Rivera Beach, Florida, just north of Palm Beach and Ft Lauderdale. Going into the game, USC was 14-3 while TCU was 11-3. After coming off of wins against Florida Gulf Coast, Stetson, Florida Atlantic, and Georgia State, that pushes USC's win streak to an impressive 6 in a row since their last loss to Berkeley (University of California, Berkeley) on March 7th. For TCU, they beat Stetson, Tampa, Georgia State, and FAU to add to their impressive win streak of 8 in a row since their last loss against none other than USC itself on February 22nd in Hawaii for the first tournament of the year when USC was ranked #1 and TCU was ranked #2. Will TCU redeem themselves and beat USC or will USC be the first school of 2025 to beat TCU twice this season? Let's get into some background information before we get into this matchup in Florida.

  For those who don't know, NCAA and Professional Beach Volleyball have the winner determined a little differently. In both sports the pair who wins has to win 2 sets whether it be by winning both sets, first to 21 in this case, or by winning 2 of the 3 sets, with the first two sets playing to 21 and the third playing to 15, with all three requiring a lead of 2 points or more when the set is finished. In the pros once a pair win their two sets, they have won the game and move on in the bracket, but NCAA is a little different, just because you've won two of your sets doesn't always mean you've won the game. In order for your school to win in NCAA your school has to win at least 3 of the 5 games they have going on against the other school. By that I mean each time a school plays against each other, they have their top 5 pairs playing each other and in order to win your school has to have at least 3 of your pairs beating 3 pairs of your opponents. Now let's get into the game of TCU taking on USC in Florida.

    The list of pairs will go in order of who finished first so the first pairs to be covered will be the 2's (or second best pair of each school). This game had Kennedy Coakley and Ashley Pater of USC taking on Maria Gonzalez and Hailey Hamlett of TCU. the first set ended at 21-16 and the second set ended at 21-13, both in favor of USC and giving them a 1-0 lead over TCU. The second pair to finish was the 3's (or third best pair on each team). This game had Sofia Izuzquiza and Allanis Navas of TCU taking on Maya Genssner and Ella Lakin of USC. This game ended at 21-19 and 21-17, both in favor of TCU and making it now tied at 1-1. The third team to finish was the 4's, or the fourth best pair on each team. This game had Anhelina Khmil and Ana Vergara, of TCU, taking on Madison Goellner and Kailegh Truslow, of USC. This game ended at 21-14 and 21-18, both in favor of TCU. With the score now 2-1 in favor of TCU, it means that TCU only needs one more win to beat USC and redeem themselves from Hawaii back in late February. The next pairs to finish was the 5's, or the fifth best pair of each team. This had Deniela Konstantinova and Anete Namike, of TCU, taking on Macy Bolyard and Calinda Kok, of USC. Both the first and second sets ended at 21-18 and both ended in favor of TCU, giving them a 3-1 lead over USC and the victory they needed to extend their win streak. Even though TCU won, let's see how the final game ended. This was played between the 1's, or the top pair of each team. This game had Zoey Henson and Madison White, of USC, taking on Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno, of TCU. The first set ended at 21-17 in favor of USC while the second set ended at 21-17 but this time in favor of TCU and causing a third set. The third set ended at 15-10 in favor of USC and ending the game with TCU having 3 wins while USC only had 2.

Here is the coaches poll for week 4 of the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Beach Volleyball season

Here is the game day post USC put on their Instagram for the games between TCU and Palm Beach State. Don't forget to give them a follow over on that platform to see how their 2025 season goes: @uscbach

TCU had no game day post on their Instagram for the big game, but they did have this posted after their 3-2 victory over USC. Don't forget to give them a follow over on that platform to see how their 2025 season goes: @tcubeachvb

After the game, the NCAA volleyball put this up on their Instagram page

    After this game, USC would go on to redeem themselves by beating Palm Beach State to finish the FAU Beach Invitational with 5 wins and 1 loss while TCU would go on to beat Palm Beach State as well and end the Invitational with 6 wins and also extend their win streak with an impressive 10 wins in a row. TCU has a record of 12-3 while USC has a record of 15-4. Besides TCU and Berkeley, USC has also lost to Stanford and LMU, both in Hawaii at the Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic where TCU lost to not just USC but also UCLA and LMU, proving once again why UCLA is #1 and LMU is #2 in the nation. The next time TCU and USC play each other will be at the Death Volley Invitational in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hosted by LSU (Louisiana State University), on March 29th at 9:15am CT if you'd like to watch that game.

    In an earlier blog I mentioned that USC is currently coached by head Coach Dain Blanton but realized I never added a picture of the two of us so I hope you enjoy the picture added here. Blanton is on the right while fellow AVP commentator Camryn Irwin is on the left.

That concludes the coverage of the latest matchup between USC and TCU. Stay tuned for the next game to be covered. If there's a team you'd like to read about or a certain match up that interests you, let me know and until next time, Miller out

~J. Miller