#4 Pepperdine Opens the 2019 Campaign in Hawai'i

Saturday, February 23

Manoa, Hawai'i

2:00 p.m. PT

Pepperdine University

Stanford

Jordan Ferrari, Deahna Kraft, Gigi Hernandez

Photo by: Ron Hall

2/21/2019 6:30:00 PM | Women's Beach Volleyball

By: by Athletic Communications

MALIBU, Calif. – The #4 Pepperdine beach volleyball team opens the 2019 season on Saturday and Sunday at the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic at Queen's Beach in Manoa, Hawai'i. The Waves will be challenged by returning NCAA National Champions and top-ranked UCLA, tournament host #5 Hawai'i, #11 Stanford and Saint Mary's throughout the weekend.

DUAL 1 – Saturday (February 23) at Queen's Beach in Manoa, Hawai'i: #4 Pepperdine vs. #11 Stanford at 2 p.m. PT

DUAL 2 – Saturday (February 23) at Queen's Beach in Manoa, Hawai'i: #4 Pepperdine at #5 Hawai'i at 5 p.m. PT

DUAL 3 – Sunday (February 24) at Queen's Beach in Manoa, Hawai'i: #4 Pepperdine vs. Saint Mary's at 11 a.m. PT

DUAL 4 – Sunday (February 24) at Queen's Beach in Manoa, Hawai'i: #4 Pepperdine vs. #1 UCLA at 3:30 p.m. PT

COVERAGE – There will be no live stream for the event. There will be live stats provided for each match, available on www.PepperdineWaves.com/BeachVolleyball. Follow on Twitter and Facebook (@WavesBeachVB) for all updates before, during and after matches. Also, go to PepperdineWaves.com for updates, recaps and more.

LOOKING AHEAD – After the opening weekend, the Waves will return home to host Long Beach State, CSU Bakersfield and CSUN in the Zuma Classic at Zuma Beach in Malibu, Calif. on March 2.

THE #4 WAVES – The Waves opened the season at the #4 spot in the AVCA Coaches Poll. Pepperdine was also predicted to win the West Coast Conference crown for the fourth-consecutive year in the WCC Preseason Poll released earlier this week. The Waves return 12 letterwinners, including nine starters. The team has also added five freshman to the squad.

The returning starters include graduate student Maddie Dilfer, seniors Skylar Caputo, Nikki Lyons, Madalyn Roh, Jenna Tunnell and Heidi Dyer, juniors Gigi Hernandez, Deahna Kraft and Jordan Ferrari, sophomores Brook Bauer, Alexis Filippone and Katie Gavin. The freshmen are Melanie Paul, Michaela Kasper, Maddy Bailey, Simone Priebe and Peyton Lewis.

OPPONENT NOTES – The Waves have played three of the upcoming four squads in previous seasons throughout history. Pepperdine holds a 6-4 overall record against UCLA dating back to the first-ever matchup in 2013 at Zuma Beach with a sweep. The Waves went on to sweep the Bruins two more times, before the opposition collected their first win against in 2016 with a 3-2 victory in LA. Last season, the Waves won one match 4-1 at Zuma Beach, while the Bruins took the other two matches 3-2 and 4-1.

Against #5 Hawai'i, the Waves have gone 10-3, with five sweeps from 2012 through 2014 either at home or on neutral setting. Pepperdine went on another four-match winning streak from 2015-17, with three 3-2 victories, but the Rainbow Wahine had the edge last season with a 3-2 win for the only time the two teams faced in the NCAA Tournament.

Pepperdine has faced fellow WCC opponent Saint Mary's on six occasions, winning all of them, with five being straight-set sweeps.

The Waves have never faced Stanford.

WEST COAST CONFERENCE PRESEASON ACCOLADES - The Waves were tabbed to finish atop the West Coast Conference for the fourth-straight season, as voted by the league's seven head coaches in the WCC Preseason Poll and released on February 20.

In addition, Brook Bauer, Deahna Kraft and Heidi Dyer earned a spot on the Preseason All-WCC squad. All three earned a plethora of honors last season, including WCC Freshman of the Year Bauer, Defensive Player of the Year Kraft and All-WCC first teamer Dyer.
Following the Waves to round out the top three are Saint Mary's (30) and PCH Cup rival LMU (27). The rest of the WCC follows: San Francisco (18), Pacific (17), Portland (11) and Santa Clara (8)
LAST SEASON – Pepperdine went 25-5 overall last season, with a 21-5 record against teams ranked in the AVCA Coaches Poll. The Waves finished ranked 5^th in the final coaches poll after winning one match at the NCAA Tournament and bowing out on day two. Pepperdine went 8-0 at home last season, with a 5-1 away record and a 13-4 record on neutral soil. The Waves also went 242-107 in sets played for a .693 set winning percentage.

THREEPEAT: WCC CHAMPS - The Waves have won back-to-back-to-back West Coast Conference Championship titles in 2016, 2017 and 2018, with a series of three-straight wins en route to each title. In 2018, the Waves won all three matches in the tournament with sweeps, defeating Portland in the opening round before downing Saint Mary's twice for the crown.

THEY CAN DO IT ALL — Seniors Nikki Lyons, Heidi Dyer and Jenna Tunnell are the only three current Waves to be competing for both Pepperdine's indoor women's volleyball program and beach volleyball program at a competitive level. Lyons and Dyer are each starters on the indoor squad and have seen ample amounts on the beach with Dyer being a three-year starter and each Wave seeing time in the NCAA and WCC Championship tournaments last season. Tunnell took some time off from the beach to focus on her indoor career, but returned this spring to aid the Waves' efforts.

HEIDI DYER, THE TITANIUM WOMAN — Junior Heidi Dyer had an interesting road to NCAA Division I athletics and AVCA Beach All-American status. When she was 12, a major scoliosis curve of over 60 percent forced her to get corrective surgery. She had two titanium rods fused to her spine to keep her back straight. Despite her parents being told she would never play volleyball again and may never walk again, she defied all odds and became one of Pepperdine beach and indoor volleyball student-athletes. During the 2016 NCAA Beach Volleyball National Championship season, TurnerSports and NCAA.com did a feature piece on her that streamed throughout the NCAA tournament and aired on TBS. It was voted one of the top-10 features on NCAA.com last season.

BEACH VOLLEYBALL HISTORY - The Pepperdine women's beach 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 en route to the national championship title. The Waves boast a nation-best 20 AVCA All-Americans: Lara Dykstra (2013, 14), Lilla Frederick (2012, 13), Kim Hill (2012, 13), Kelley Larsen (2014, 15), Caitlin Racich (2012, 13), Ross (2012), Becca Strehlow (2014), Kellie Woolever (2014, 15), Taylor Racich (2016), Heidi Dyer (2016), Delaney Knudsen (2017), Madalyn Roh (2017), Corinne Quiggle (2018) and Deahna Kraft (2018). 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. The Waves have also charted eight Volleyball Magazine All-Americans and six VolleyMob All-Americans throughout history. In 2018, the Waves swept the West Coast Conference big awards: Corinne Quiggle (Player of the Year), Deahna Kraft (Defensive Player of the Year) and Brook Bauer (Freshman of the Year). 18 Waves have earned All-WCC honors, with 12 first team selections.

SICOLI – The 2019 beach season will see Marcio Sicoli at the helm for the first time, as legendary former head coach and beach volleyball pioneer Nina Matthies retired at the completion of the 2018 season. He will be the second head coach for Pepperdine beach volleyball in recorded history. As an assistant Matthies on the beach, Sicoli has helped the Waves amass a 137-23 overall record over the seven seasons of the sports existence. Sicoli joined Matthies' indoor coaching staff prior to the 2008 season, coached both beach and indoor teams with Matthies from 2012, and focused on beach volleyball with the Waves beginning in the 2014 season. 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.
ZUMA BEACH - The Waves call Zuma Beach "home," practicing and hosting all home events at one of Malibu's most picturesque locations. Courts are located just west of Point Dume, between Towers 2 & 3 or at the 29800 block of the Pacific Coast Highway. All-time, the Waves have gone 42-2 overall for a .955 winning output at Zuma Beach, while the team has gone 200-37 for individual all-time records at home for a .844 winning percentage.

NCAA STATUS - This season marks the fourth season which beach volleyball will be an NCAA-sanctioned sport, with the NCAA Championships to be held again in Gulf Shores, Ala. from May 3-5. The last three seasons marked the first that the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships was held in Gulf Shores, with USC take home the first two titles and UCLA winning the most recent one. 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.

ABOUT PEPPERDINE - Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I Championships in five different men's sports — one of just 17 schools to have accomplished this feat — and nine overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest undergraduate enrollment, is the only school without football and is the only university that has not been affiliated with a "major" conference. The Waves have won a total of 25 team or individual national championships in their history. Pepperdine has also earned the Division I-AAA All-Sports Trophy, an award based on postseason success that's given to the top non-football school, three times (most recently in 2011-12). Located in scenic Malibu, Calif., the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation's most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks No. 50 overall on U.S. News and World Report's list of America's best colleges.