#6 Cal Poly at #7 Texas 4-18-2025 BVB
Dear Readers~
Welcome to the final blog covering the regular season for the 2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball season. Today we'll see how #6 California Polytechnic (Cal Poly for short) based in San Luis Obispo, California, and University of Texas based in Austin, Texas, did as their last tournament of the regular 2025 season has ended. This game took place as part of the Lone Star Invitational held by Texas in their capital of Austin at the Wright-Whitaker Sports Complex.
As for how the Lone Star Invitational played out up to this point, this is the second game for Cal Poly as well as for Texas. Cal Poly came off of a 5-0 win against Texas A&M Corpus Christi while Texas came off of a 5-0 win against Southern Mississippi. As for the season, Cal Poly currently sits at 23-6 while Texas sits at 22-8. The last loss for Cal Poly was at the Center of Effort Challenge against TCU Cal Poly hosted back in mid-April while Texas' last loss was against USC at the Death Volley Invitational in Louisiana at the end of March.
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 Cal Poly taking on Texas in Texas' capital of Austin as the two have what could potentially be the only matchup against each other in the 2025 season. Let's get into this game to see how the teams play in their first, and potentially only, match up of the 2025 season.
The games will go in order of who finished and since the #4 pairs finished first, they're the first team to cover. The #4 pairs, or the fourth best pair of each team, are made up of Ella Connor and Madi Nichols, of Cal Poly, taking on Macey Butler and Noa Sonneville, of Texas. That game ended 21-14 and 21-18, both in favor of Cal Poly and giving them a 1-0 lead over Texas. The next pair to finish were the 2's, or the second-best pair of each team. This game included Izzy Martinez and Logan Walter, of Cal Poly, taking on Emma Grace Robertson and Katie Hashman, of Texas. This game ended 21-17 and 21-19, both in favor of Cal Poly and putting them up 2-0 over Texas. The third team to finish was the 3's, or the third best pair of each team. This game had Quinn Perry and Lindsey Sparks, of Cal Poly, taking on Karin Zolnercikova and Maddison Parmelly, of Texas. This game was close, ending at 21-19 and 21-18 both in favor of Texas and making the score 2-1, still in favor of Cal Poly. The fourth game to finish was the 1's, or the top pair of each team. This game had Piper French and Erin Inskeep, of Cal Poly, taking on Chloe Charles and Eva Liisa Kuivonen, of Texas. This game ended at 21-15 and 21-18, both in favor of Cal Poly and giving them the 3-1 victory over Texas but let's see how the final game went. This final game was for the 5's which had Katie Clevenger and Elise Lenahan, of Cal Poly, taking on Ava Patton and Vivian Johnson, of Texas. The first set ended at 21-19, in favor of Cal Poly while the second set ended at 21-18, in favor of Texas, and causing a third set. The third set ended at 15-12, remember that the third set only goes to 15, in favor of Texas. This means that #6 Cal Poly beat #7 Texas 3-2 and gave Texas its first loss since late March when, at the time, #4 ranked USC beat Texas 3-0 in Louisiana. If the 3-0 scoring confuses you, I did a blog covering the game between, at the time as well as currently ranked, #1 UCLA played #2 TCU at that same tournament.
After this game, Texas would go on to play Southern Mississippi (for a second time this tournament) along with North Florida while Cal Poly would go on to play North Florida and Southern Mississippi. All games would end 5-0 in favor of Texas and Cal Poly except for the Cal Poly against Southern Mississippi game where that game ended 3-0 in favor of Cal Poly. The reason the last game only went 3-0 was due to the weather making them cancel the game before those matches ended. With this tournament concluding, Cal Poly would end the regular season at 26-6 while Texas would end their regular season at 24-9 and proving why they're #6 and #7 in the nation respectively.
That concludes the final regular season game of the NCAA 2025 Beach Volleyball season I will cover. Up next is the Conference Championships happening this current weekend. Cal Poly belongs to the Big West Conference while Texas belongs to the CCSA (Coastal Collegiate Sports Association). The Big West will be at Ocean Park in Santa Monica, California, just west of Los Angeles and north of LAX, while the CCSA will be at LSU's beach volleyball stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. With both teams belonging to different conferences that means that the only way these two will play each other again this season is if both teams are part of the 16 teams that make it to the national championships after the conference championships are over this current weekend. Next weekend is the National Championships in Gulf Shores, Alabama so stay tuned for those if you're unable to attend in person. With the season wrapping up here shortly, I'll be getting ready to cover the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) this summer, so stay tuned for that. If there's a game or sport you'd like to read about, let me know and until next time, Miller out
~J. Miller
Comments
Post a Comment