MALIBU, Calif. ­Â— The Pepperdine women’s volleyball team dominated at the first-ever 2009 USA Volleyball Collegiate Challenge, a one-day sand volleyball event held in Long Beach on Saturday (April 4). The Waves won the team trophy and their two-player teams took first, second and third place in the Gold Division.

 

The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics recommended last year that sand volleyball be added to the list of official emerging sports for women. A vote will be taken on that proposal later this year. This event was part of USA Volleyball’s efforts to promote the sport at the collegiate level.

 

Junior Kiah Fiers (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif./Peninsula HS) and freshman Lilla Frederick (Huntington Beach, Calif./Cornelia Connelly HS) won the Gold Division and went undefeated. Freshmen Stevi Robinson (Hermosa Beach, Calif./Mira Costa HS) and Kim Hill (Portland, Ore./Portland Christian HS) took second place and junior Rachel Lumsden (Brea, Calif./Brea Olinda HS) and sophomore Krista Friedman (La Verne, Calif./St. Lucy’s Priory) garnered third place.

 

The only losses suffered by Pepperdine teams were to themselves. Each squad won its pool group and then advanced to the semifinals. The team of Hill-Robinson defeated Friedman-Lumsden in the final four, while the Fiers-Frederick pairing beat a team from Chico State. The Fiers-Frederick duo then beat Hill-Robinson in the final, 28-22. Lumsden-Friedman beat the Chico State duo, 29-27, in the third-place match.

 

“It was really nice to be a part of this event,” Pepperdine Coach Nina Matthies said. “It was a beautiful day and there was a lot of good energy out there. It was fun for all the indoor teams to experience the beach. Our teams played really, really well. They represented themselves and Pepperdine like the champs that they are.”

 

Matthies, who will be in her 27th year as head coach at Pepperdine this fall, was one of the world’s top beach volleyball players spanning from the 1970s to the early 1990s. In 139 career starts on the beach, she won 43 titles and earned 93 podium finishes. She is a member of the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame.