ACU to add women's beach volleyball in 2018
10/13/2016 1:00:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
ABILENE, Texas – Abilene Christian University announced Thursday that it is adding women's beach volleyball as a varsity sport, with competition beginning in Spring 2018. Women's indoor volleyball assistant coach Breann Nesselhuf will oversee the beach volleyball program as its head coach.
With the addition of beach volleyball, ACU will now sponsor 17 sports overseen by 11 head coaches. Indoor volleyball student-athletes will make up the members of the beach volleyball team for the 2018 season. De León also said the university will convert the outdoor basketball court on the east side on the Royce & Pam Money Student Recreation & Wellness Center and the grass area to the south of the courts into a beach volleyball facility complete with three competition courts.
"We're grateful to ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert and his Senior Leadership Team for giving us the go-ahead to add women's beach volleyball," said ACU director of athletics Lee De León. "This is one of the most exciting and fastest-growing sports in the NCAA, and after doing a tremendous amount of research, we're thrilled to offer it to our volleyball student-athletes and fans."
Fifty colleges and universities fielded beach volleyball teams in 2015, 10 more than the required minimum of 40 for a NCAA-sponsored championship. The University of Southern California defeated Florida State last May to win the sport's first national championship.
Four members of the Southland Conference – Central Arkansas, Houston Baptist, New Orleans and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi – currently sponsor the sport, with others studying the possibility of adding it to their lineups. Once ACU adds beach volleyball in 2018, the Southland would need one other member for the league to support a tournament to send its champion to the NCAA Tournament.
Nesselhuf – who is in her first year as the Wildcats' indoor assistant coach to head coach Jason Bibler – will direct the program starting immediately. She served as assistant beach volleyball coach at Boise State for three seasons before joining the ACU staff last spring.
"I have witnessed the value of having an additional volleyball competition season and how playing doubles on the sand transforms good indoor players into elite ones," said Nesselhuf, who also played some events on the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour following her graduation from Boise State. "I am excited to see that growth happen for our ACU team as we learn to love the sand as much as we love playing indoors, and help grow the game of volleyball."
Beach Volleyball Quick Facts
• Two players compete on each side of the court.
• A match is the best two of three sets, with the first two sets played to 21 points and the third, if needed, played to 15 points. All sets must be won by two points with no cap; it is rally scoring.
• Similar to college tennis doubles, a beach volleyball competition consists of five doubles teams competing in a flighted dual or tourney competition. The dual meet winner will be the team winning three of the five matches. In a tournament competition, individual winners can be named in each flight and the team champion is the one scoring the most points in all five brackets combined.
• On average, a single match will last 35-50 minutes. Most student-athletes will be able to play two to three matches in a day for consecutive days.
• Teams are required to take part in a minimum of eight matches on a maximum of 16 playing dates. The majority of teams play four-to-five matches per weekend over a span of four weekend tournaments.
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