No. 3 Waves Begin Postseason Run at WCC Championship
4/18/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Beach Volleyball
NOTESMALIBU, Calif. - The 3rd-ranked Pepperdine beach volleyball team begins the postseason run on Friday and Saturday as the No. 1-seed in the second-ever West Coast Conference Championships at Ocean Park Beach in Santa Monica, Calif.
WEST COAST CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS - No. 3 Pepperdine (21-3) at the West Coast Conference Championships | Friday-Saturday, April 21-22 at Ocean Park Beach in Santa Monica, Calif. | First round bye, second round at noon vs. winner of No. 4 seed Pacific (3-8) and No. 5 seed Portland (3-5).
COVERAGE - Follow @WavesBeachVB on Twitter and Facebook for live updates before, during and after matches. Also, go to PepperdineWaves.com for updates, recaps, results and more. WCC Championships Tournament Central page located here: http://gowav.es/2pPNtjU.
LOOKING AHEAD - After the WCC Championships, the Waves look to compete at the second-ever NCAA National Championships in Gulf Shores, Ala. from May 5-7. The selection show for the tournament will be Sunday, April 30.
WCC CHAMPIONSHIPS: A HISTORY - This season is the second-ever that the West Coast Conference will hold a championships tournament for beach volleyball. Last season, the Waves won the inaugural tournament held at Ocean Park Beach in Santa Monica, Calif. after entering as the top-seed and defeating Saint Mary's twice and PCH Cup rivals Loyola Marymount once to earn the first-ever WCC Championship crown.
FIELD & FORMAT - The WCC Women's Beach Volleyball Championship will be played using a team, dual-match format, consisting of five best-of-three set doubles matches. Each doubles match shall be decided by the winner in a best two out of three sets. NCAA scoring protocol will be adhered.
Pepperdine enters the tournament for the second-consecutive year as the No. 1-seed and as such, will earn a bye through the first round of play. The Waves will open the tournament in the second round with a match-up against the winner of No. 4-seed Pacific, a team receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Poll, and No. 5-seed Portland. Saint Mary's, a team receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Poll, earned the No. 2-seed and will face No. 7-seeded San Francisco in the third match of the day. PCH Cup rivals Loyola Marymount picked up the No. 3-seed and will face No. 6-seeded Santa Clara in the second match of day one.
One winning team from each side of the bracket will face off against each other to open day two on Saturday at 9 a.m. The winner of that match will earn a spot in the Championship match at 1:30 p.m. and will face the team that works through the loser's bracket. As the tournament is double-elimination, if the team that advanced through the winner's bracket loses in the championships, both teams will face again immediately following the completion for the first-championship match.
2017 WEST COAST CONFERENCE BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP INFORMATION
TOURNAMENT CENTRAL: http://www.wccsports.com/page/2017-wcc-beach-volleyball-championship
CHAMPIONSHIP SITE ADDRESS:
OCEAN PARK BEACH
2400 OCEAN FRONT WALK
SANTA MONICA, CA 90402
WCC CHAMPIONSHIPS - Friday and Saturday, April 21-22 | Ocean Beach Park in Santa Monica, Calif.
PARKING - Ocean Park Beach 2400 Ocean Front Walk Santa Monica, CA 90405 (Championship Competition Courts Located Directly in Front of Perry's Café) - Enter parking at Bicknell and Ocean. There is an attendant that one can pay for a daily pass, or one go to the ticket machine if he/she is going to be less time. The tournament is south of the parking booth by 300 yards right across from Perry's Cafe. 
DIRECTIONS -
Coming From the North on Pacific Coast Highway: Go south on Pacific Coast Highway. After reaching the California incline, watch for directional signs for beach parking and deceleration lane on the right. Competition courts are located at the corner of Hollister Avenue and Ocean Avenue / Barnard Way.
Coming From the North on Ocean Avenue: Go south on Ocean Avenue. The competition courts are located one south of Santa Monica Blvd. at corner of Hollister Avenue and Ocean Avenue / Barnard Way.
Coming from the South on Ocean Avenue: Go north on Ocean Avenue. Turn left at Hollister Avenue and drive into the 2400 parking lot.
Coming From I-10: Go west on I-10. Exit the freeway at 4th/5th Street exit. Stay in the left lane, taking you to 4th Street. Turn left on 4th Street and proceed to Pico Blvd. Make a right on Pico Blvd., proceed to Ocean Avenue. Turn right on Ocean Avenue and proceed to the corner of Hollister Avenue and Ocean Avenue / Barnard Way intersection.
Coming From I-405: From the north or south on the 405 Freeway, take I-10 West. Drive west on I-10 and exit freeway at 4th/5th Street exit. Go south on 5th St. to Pico Blvd. Make a left on Ocean Avenue / Barnard Way and drive straight to the 2400 Ocean Front Walk parking lot.
AIRPORTS - Airport Distances The closest airport is Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). • Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) = 8 miles • Bob Hope Airport (BUR) = 25 miles • John Wayne Airport (SNA) = 52 miles • Long Beach Airport (LGB) = 35 miles • Ontario International Airport (ONT) = 60 miles
THE NO. 3 WAVES - Pepperdine posted a 21-3 overall record throughout the regular season campaign, including a 9-1 record at Zuma Beach, a 6-2 record on the road and a perfect 8-0 record on neutral sand. The Waves went 12-3 when playing nationally ranked competition this season. Pepperdine's No. 1-pair, Delaney Knudsen and Madalyn Roh have gone 17-7 overall in the top-spot. In the No. 2-position, Brittany Howard and Corinne Quiggle posted a team-best 21-3 record. Skylar Caputo and Heidi Dyer and Anika Wilson and Deahna Kraft sported 19-5 records when playing in the No. 3- and 4-positions. The Waves have had six teams compete at different times throughout the season in the No. 5-slot, with most recently Sarah Seiber and Nikki Lyons taking hold of the position with a 1-0 record. Seiber has gone 6-4 and Lyons has gone 3-1 when playing in the No. 5 spot with different partners.
OPPONENT NOTES - Pepperdine has charted a 12-0 record against West Coast Conference competition since 2012, including a 6-0 record over PCH Cup rivals and No. 3-seeded Loyola Marymount, a 3-0 record against No. 2-seed Saint Mary's and 1-0 records against 4th-seeded Pacific, 6th-seeded Santa Clara and 7th-seeded San Francisco. The Waves have never faced Portland. Saint Mary's leads the WCC opposition with a 16-8 record, LMU has gone 10-12 this season, Pacific and Portland have put up a 3-8 and 3-5 record respectively and Santa Clara and San Francisco have charted 0-9 and 0-15 records this season. This season, the Waves have only faced one conference opponent, Loyola Marymount, and bested the Lyons with a straight-set 5-0 victory.
LAST WEEK IN TALLAHASSEE - Last weekend, the Waves closed out the regular season at the Florida State Invitational in Tallahassee, Fla., posting a three wins and one loss against three nationally ranked teams. On day one, Pepperdine downed No. 9 Stetson with a 5-0 sweep and then fell to No. 4 Florida State with a 3-2 decision. On day two, the Waves battled No. 14 Florida International for a 3-2 win before closing out the tournament with a dominating 4-1 win over the Seminoles to hand FSU the team's first-ever home loss.
#NCAATOP10 - Pepperdine is not only the sole beach volleyball team that has been featured on the #NCAATop10 lists in social media, but the Waves have earned a spot in four of the last six weeks. Last week, sophomore Anika Wilson and freshman Deahna Kraft earned a spot at No. 9 on the list as the pair made a diving play for the dual-clinching dig/kill combo against 12th-ranked Grand Canyon. In previous weeks, Pepperdine's No. 1 pair senior Delaney Knudsen and sophomore Madalyn Roh, the No. 2 duo graduate student Brittany Howard and junior Corinne Quiggle, and No. 5 pair Nikki Lyons and Tiffany Morales have also earned the honor, as the one and two pairs earned the No. 7-slot and the No. 5-pair took a No. 9-spot honor.
PRESEASON HONORS & POLLS - The Waves ranked 4th in the AVCA preseason poll and were picked as the favorite to finish as the West Coast Conference Champions again by the WCC coaches. Pepperdine was also charted in the No. 4 spot on DiG Magazine. Five Waves, senior Delaney Knudsen, junior Corinne Quiggle and sophomores Heidi Dyer, Skylar Caputo and Madalyn Roh earned Preseason All-WCC accolades.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL HISTORY - The Pepperdine women's sand volleyball program has been at the forefront of the sport since it was introduced in 2012. The Waves went a perfect 14-0 in dual match play and won the inaugural AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball National Team Championship in Gulf Shores, Ala. Pepperdine's Caitlin Racich -- the program's first-ever scholarship recipient -- and partner Summer Ross took home the pairs national crown as well. In 2013, the Waves marched back to the national title match but fell 3-2 while playing shorthanded. The Waves returned with a vengeance in 2014, going 18-1 in route to the national championship title. The Waves boast a nation-best 14 AVCA All-Americans: Lara Dykstra (2013, 14), Lilla Frederick (2012, 13), Kim Hill (2012, 13), Kelley Larsen (2014, 15), Racich (2012, 13), Ross (2012), Becca Strehlow (2014) and Kellie Woolever (2014, 15). Hill stands as the first, and to date only, student-athlete to earn AVCA All-American first team honors in both indoor and sand volleyball in a single season. . Last season, the Waves worked a position in the field of eight for the inaugural NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships in Gulf Shores, Ala., finishing 5th overall. The Waves enter the 2017 season with an 85-13 record.
NCAA STATUS - This season marks the second season which beach volleyball will be an NCAA-sanctioned sport, with the NCAA Championships to be held again in Gulf Shores, Ala. from May 5-7. Last season in the inaugural NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships in Gulf Shores after an eight-team field of competition, USC took the first-ever championship title. Previously, collegiate sand volleyball, completed the fourth and final year as an "emerging sport" in the 2015 season. It was given 10 years to gain the minimum 40 sponsoring institutions for two years in a row to be considered an NCAA Championship sport. With requirements met in record time, sand volleyball was voted into NCAA Championship Sport status in 2015. The NCAA will host only a team championship, and not a pairs championship.
MATTHIES - Nina Matthies' retired from coaching the indoor game following the 2013 season and finishes her 31-season run with a career record of 590-343 (.632). In the span, Matthies led the Waves to 10 conference championships and 20 NCAA Tournament appearances. She is by far the WCC's all-time winningest coach and is a 10-time WCC Coach of the Year. Matthies was among the world's top players and is a member of the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame and in 2015 was inducted into the AVCA Hall of Fame and earned the USA Volleyball's All-Time Great Female Beach Player award. In 2009, Dig Magazine rated her and former partner Linda Hanley as the second-best women's beach team of all time. She won two AIAW national championships as a player at UCLA. In 2013, she was honored by her peers as the inaugural winner of the AVCA Sand Volleyball Coach of the Year award. She enters the 2017 beach season, her sixth at the helm, with a 85-13 record. She will be assisted this season once again by Marcio Sicoli, along with second-year volunteer coach Gustavo Rocha.
SICOLI - Marcio Sicoli is in his sixth season assisting Nina Matthies in the sand, after spending six season with her as assistant indoor volleyball coach. Sicoli is highly lauded for his approach to training and served as head coach for Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings during their gold-medal run at the 2012 London Olympics as well as the Walsh Jennings and April Ross bronze medal run at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Olympica. Sicoli also served as the assistant coach for the Brazilian Olympic Women's Beach Volleyball Team from 2000 to 2004. In 2004, his team of Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede took home the silver medal in Athens. He currently serves as coach to 2016 Olympic hopefuls Walsh Jennings and April Ross.
