ASU beach volleyball will travel to the beaches of California this weekend to face two Pac-12 rivals in the Stanford Invitational tournament.
For beach volleyball fans, this is the best time of the year.
After two weekends of play in Tempe and Fort Worth, Texas, the ASU beach volleyball team will now journey to the heart of the sport’s origin to face Pac-12 opponents Cal and Stanford.
The Sun Devils hold a 2-4 overall record going into this week’s tournament. All four losses have come to teams ranked in the AVCA Coaches Top 20 Poll.
For the first time this season, the Sun Devils will enter a tournament where they won’t face any opponents ranked in the top 20. Their lone match against an unranked opponent this season resulted in a 3-2 victory over Nebraska.
Coach Brad Keenan’s team will continue to determine who their long-term option at the No. 2 rotation will be. Natalie Braun, Frances Giedraitis, Kara Woodard and Halle Harker all had their hands in the rotation last weekend.
The Sun Devils will open the tournament Friday at 3:30 p.m. MT against Cal. Last season, ASU defeated the Bears by a score of three sets to two in their lone meeting in Tempe.
The lone Sun Devil returnees to pick up a win in that match came in the No. 5 game, where Natalie Braun and Katie Cross took down Bridget Gustafson and Teya Neff in three sets.
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Like Arizona State, the Bears are a young program, entering only their fifth year of existence. Last year, they were able to mirror similar successes of ASU, as they were ranked in the top 20 when the two teams squared off on April 21.
This year, the Bears hope the return of eight rotation players and two star recruits will help them achieve national success.
Cal enters the Stanford Invitational with a 3-1 overall record. Coach Meagan Owusu’s squad has won three straight games over Pacific, Santa Clara and San Jose State since falling to Saint Mary’s in their season opener.
The Bears are led by senior Jessica Gaffney and sophomore Iya Lindahl in their No. 1 pairing. Despite only a 2-2 record at that position, Gaffney’s 16 starts at the position from 2017 give the Bears experience at the front line.
The No. 2 pairing is led by freshmen Mima Mirkovic and Alexia Inman, the two members who headed Cal’s highly-touted recruiting class going into the season.
Prior to her college career, Mirkovic won two bronze medals at the FIVB U19 and U21 World Championships. Her partner, Inman, was an AVCA High School Beach All-American Honorable Mention selection in high school.
Regardless of their absence in the top 20, the Sun Devils will have to ward off Cal’s talented lineup in their first two pairings.
On Saturday, the Sun Devils will face another conference foe in the Stanford Cardinal at 3:30 p.m. MST.
In 2017, ASU dominated both of their meetings against the Cardinal, winning 5-0 in two matchups located in Tempe and the Pac-12 Beach Volleyball Championships in Tucson.
Stanford, who opened 2018 being ranked at No. 17, dropped their first four matches at the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu with losses to No. 3 UCLA and No. 5 Hawaii. Since then, the Cardinal have won five straight matches with a sweep of their opponents Stanford Bay Area Kickoff Tournament last weekend.
The Cardinal only return one senior on this year in Catherine Raquel, but welcome back a total of 10 returnees, including sophomore Kathryn Plummer. Last year, Plummer was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, playing in all 23 matches last season at the No. 1 position.
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One pairing to watch in this match will be Stanford’s Courtney Bowen/Kate Formico against ASU’s Katelyn Carballo and Ellyson Lundberg at the No. 3 position. Lundberg and Carballo hold a 5-1 overall record going into the match, while Bowen and Formico enter with a 6-2 overall record.