AVCA Small College Championships Seeding and Schedule
TAVARES, FLA. - After finishing the regular season tied with the second most wins in program history, the Carson-Newman beach volleyball team heads to Tavares, Fla. for the 2021 AVCA Small College Championships.
Carson-Newman's pod will consist of the number one seed Tampa, the number six seed Colorado Mesa and the #12 seed Catawba. The Eagles will play Tampa and Colorado Mesa on Friday, Apr. 16 at 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM, before facing Catawba at 10:00 AM on Saturday, Apr. 17.
Carson-Newman earned the seven seed in the AVCA Small College Championships after completing the regular season with a 6-4 record.
Fans can catch all the action from Hickory Point Beach and the AVCA Small College Beach Championships live streamed on BallerTV. A special event pass priced at $50 is available to watch all matches from the championships. Links to the broadcast and stats are available at cneagles.com. Fans will also be able to follow along on Twitter with live updates from Hickory Point Beach at @cnathletics all weekend long.
Following pool play, teams will be assigned to challenge round play on Saturday based on the results from the Friday and Saturday pool play matches. The challenge round will consist of the top two teams from each of the three pools competing against each other. These six teams will compete in the Gold bracket on Sunday. The bottom two teams from each of the three pools will compete in the Silver bracket on Sunday. All teams will have one pool play match and one challenge round match on Saturday. Gold and Silver bracket play begins on Sunday morning. The Division II Champion will be the winner of the Gold bracket.
"We're just grateful that there is a national championship this year for us," says head coach Cat Lind. "To be able to compete is a high honor and AVCA has done a great job with setting this up and we're hopeful to see how competitive we can be. This weekend will hopefully show how serious we are, how better we have gotten as a team and how much we can improve."
The Eagles are just 1-6 all-time at the AVCA Small College Championships, with the team's only trip coming in 2019. Carson-Newman earned a 3-2 win over Principia before falling to rival Tusculum 4-1 to close out the weekend at second place in the Division II bronze pod. Current Eagle senior Lauren Williams was part of a pair that included Lexy Headley that earned two wins in the final round.
The Eagles are 0-1 all time against Tampa. The Spartans and Eagles last met at the 2019 AVCA Small College Championships where Tampa won 5-0. Current Eagle senior Joy Rhodes made her first appearance as a member of the beach volleyball team in the match, falling 21-9 and 21-8.
After starting the season 1-5, Tampa finished the regular season 13-11, including at one point winning seven straight. The Spartans also tallied two wins over #20 Florida Gulf Coast, winning 3-2 and 4-1.
"If we have a great mindset and we're ready and prepared, I think we're going to compete really well," says Lind. "I've seen their coaching style and playing style but we need to compete mentally. If we're mentally there, we'll do well. This weekend is going to hopefully show other teams how serious we are and how much better we've gotten and how much better we can become."
Carson-Newman has never faced Colorado Mesa. The Mavericks are the first team west of the Mississippi River that the Eagles will face since the squad dropped a contest to Texas A&M-Kingsville 4-1 on Mar. 9, 2019 in Charleston, S.C. The Mavs are the most westernly team the Eagles have faced since dropping a contest to Arizona State on March 21, 2015 in Columbia, S.C.
The Mavericks finished the regular season 3-10 with a pair of victories over Division-I Utah, knocking off the Utes 3-2 and 5-0 earlier in the year.
"Mesa is a physical team," says Lind. "It's going to be about our mentality and we're going to have to score quick and early."
Catawba and Carson-Newman have never met. The Indians are in just their second season ever of competition. The squad from Salisbury dropped two matches to Coastal Carolina in their first season in 2020. The Indians elected to wait until the end of the indoor spring season to have their full roster and played their first match of the season on Apr. 14 against Spartanburg Methodist College, knocking off the Pioneers 5-0 and 4-1.
"Catawba is going to be interesting," says Lind. "They have a lot of crossover from indoor season so we know what those girls look like. We hope our girls keep a good mindset and handle their business against them."
Carson-Newman's 6-4 season included the squad earning their first win over a Division I team since Mar. 31, 2019 when the Eagles knocked off Chattanooga in the Scenic City back on Mar. 24. With a 2-1 lead, the pairing of Mia Toribio and Lindsey Geurin clinched the match with a three-set victory, winning the first set 21-18, dropping the second set 21-12 and clinching the match with a 15-11 win in the final set.
The Eagles finished undefeated at home for the first time since 2016, going 4-0 with two wins over St. Andrews, a win over Erskine and the program's first ever win over rival Tusculum. In Mossy Creek, the Eagle pairs went 16-3, with the pair of Summer Coulter and Megan Oldenburger going 3-0, while the pair of Geurin and Mia Toribio and Abby Streuwing and Sierra Still went 4-0 at home.
Streuwing needs just three more wins to pass Taylor Lowe for first place in program history for most career wins and would be the first-ever player in program history to earn at least 20 wins. The senior has gone 5-5 this season, including an impressive 5-3 mark at the no. two position.
Not to be outdone, Coulter needs just five more wins to reach 20 career victories. The senior has posted a 9-7 record over the past two seasons.
Toribio followed up a strong freshman campaign in 2020 with a sophomore surge, going 7-3 in the regular season. She holds the highest winning percentage of players with at least 10 matches played in program history, with an overall record of 13-4 for a winning percentage of .765.
Following AVCA, the Eagles will head to Salisbury, N.C. to compete in the SAC Beach Challenge at Catawba College beginning on Friday, Apr. 29. Carson-Newman will face Catawba, Lincoln Memorial and Tusculum in the two day event. A complete schedule can be found at cneagles.com.
