Sports by Miller

 Dear Readers~     I have returned with my latest UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and LMU (Loyola Marymount University) game coverage. The last time I covered a game between these two was in mid April as they played in Laguna Beach, California for the Laguna Best of the West but this time things are different. Things are different because it's the point in the season where if you lose, your season is over but if you win, you move on to the national championship. Withe UCLA having won it in 2018 and 2019, they want to return but with LMU having never won, they want to win, especially after having beaten the 4 time in a row national champion, USC, in the previous round of play. With all of UCLA's coaches being professional beach volleyball players, and 2 being Olympians, along with all 3 of LMU's coaches being professional beach volleyball players, but none being Olympians, you know it will be a good game. Now let's see who will be moving on and who will fall...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the second blog covering the 2025 NCAA National Championships that took place on May 2nd to May 4th in Gulf Shores, Alabama. In the previous blog I covered the first-round matchup between #1 UCLA and #16 UTC but this time I'll be covering the second round (also the quarterfinal) matchup between #4 LMU (Loyola Marymount University) and #5 USC (University of Southern California). USC is also your 4-time National Champion, winning it every year since 2021 (with Dain Blanton as head coach) as well as in 2016 and 2017 (with Anna Collier as head coach). Will USC keep their streak alive or will LMU beat them and be one game closer to the national finals? Let's get into this game to find out.     First up, let's see this coaching staff. As mentioned, USC's head coach is Sydney 2000 Olympic Gold Medalist Dain Blanton while the head assistant coach is Gustavo Rocha, and the assistant coach is Emily Bowman. Not only did Blanton win gold in 200...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the first blog of the 2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball National Championships taking place in Gulf Shores, Alabama. This blog will cover just one of the 8 match ups between the 16 teams competing in the first round. The game I chose to cover was #1 UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) taking on #16 University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC).     Back in both 2018 and 2019 UCLA won back-to-back national championships here in Gulf Shores with legendary coach Stein Metzger (who now coaches Texas (who played against Berkeley only a few hours after this game)) so they're looking to do it again with current head coach Jenny Johnson Jordan along with assistant coaches Jose Loiola and Kelly Reeves. Johnson Jordan and Loiola both competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics for the US and Brazil respectively. All 3 coaches played on the AVP during their time as players but have all since retired and stick to coaching. The AVP is where I met and got ...

 Dear Readers~     In my last blog I talked about the 8 teams that made it to the national championships by winning their conference and those teams were North Florida, Long Beach State, Texas, Florida Atlantic, University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC), Stanford, Boise State, and LMU.  Let's see what a selection show is. For NCAA Beach Volleyball a selection show is where the NCAA selection committee reveals the bracket for the specific sport, in this case beach volleyball. With 8 teams already chosen, they chose who the final 8 would be along with how they would be ranked and what the bracket would look like. For NCAA basketball you know it better as March Madness.     Let's look more into the confirmed 8 teams before we see who the final 8 will be. Up first is the ASUN (Atlantic SUN) conference with their champion of North Florida coached by Doug Wright and a season record of 26-10 along with a win streak of 2.  As for the Big West that was won by L...

 Dear Readers~     With the regular season over with, it's time to cover the Conference Championships. There are 8 different conferences when it comes to NCAA Division 1 Beach Volleyball that I will be talking about today. They include Atlantic Sun (ASUN), the Big West, Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA), Conference USA (CUSA), Ohio Valley Conference, Pac-12, Southland Conference, and the West Coast Conference. In this blog, I will be covering a few different games so let's see how the conference championships go as the schools prepare to make it to Orange Beach, Alabama for the National Championships and the 16 available spots up for grabs.     We will start off with the various teams I've covered over the course of this 2025 season and how they ended their regular season. The first teams I covered this season were USC (24-8) and UCLA (29-4) followed by Arizona State (20-12), GCU (22-10), Florida State (23-10), TCU (25-5), Texas (24-9), LMU (32-6), St...