CHULA VISTA, Calif. – In a season of inaugural events, the No. 2-ranked Corban University Beach Volleyball team looks to add one more to their 2024 accomplishments over the next three days in southern California, where the Warriors will embark in three pool play duals looking to clinch a top two finish in order to advance to bracket play at the NAIA West Beach Volleyball Championships.
To see the complete bracket for the 2024 NAIA West Beach Volleyball Tournament, click HERE.
In yet another regular season filled with few mental mistakes and soaring to a 15-3 overall record, the Warriors most recently completed an 11-1 through Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) play, thus earning them the No. 1-overall seed from the conference heading into this week's tourney. Corban's lone NAIA match loss of the season came less than a week ago to RV Southern Oregon University (10-3, 9-3), who will appear as the second CCC seed in pool play group B. NCAA Division I schools Sacramento State University and the University of Oregon handed the Navy and Gold their remaining two overall record losses in cross-divisional play.
While two of their three losses came to NCAA DI opponents, the Warriors ended the regular season 3-2 against the top division in collegiate sports, as they swept a three-match set from the University of Portland to extend their winning streak against the Pilots and recording their first ever 5-0 sweep of a DI program.
In typical Corban beach volleyball fashion, a majority of their wins and losses this season ran through their top overall pairing of junior Megan Dennis and freshman Emma Bischoff, who completed the regular season with a 13-4 record and only one conference pair loss to the first pair from RV College of Idaho, which they later avenged in a 2-0 sweep of the same duo two days later. Yesterday, the first-year pair were named the CCC Pair of the Year, marking the second-straight season that the top Warrior twosome has received an honor of equal magnitude from the conference head coaches.
Following Dennis and Bischoff not only in lineup formation but in roughly equal levels of dominance against their competition is junior Jessica McMillian and freshman Danae Stokes, who have both stepped into the number two pair to lose only three pairings all season long. They currently hold a team-best 32 sets won and will look to extend that mark this week in their next three matchups.
Rounding out the Warriors' top three pairing is redshirt junior Nicole Bantilan and sophomore Emmi Marks, who despite playing in the third duo for Corban, might possess the highest combined beach volleyball IQ on the team with their crafty attacks and defensive reads. Bantilan and Marks join Dennis and Bischoff not only as a CCC Pair of the Week winner, but as an NAIA Pair of the Week honoree duo as well. In the event that Bantilan is unable to recover in time from the injury she suffered in a pair forfeit to C of I last Friday, freshman Kiley Power is expected to rise to the occasions and play alongside Marks just as they did last week when the new partnership finished 3-0 on the weekend.
While the Navy and Gold's fourth and fifth pairs have not shown to be as consistent as their top three duos with Coach Stephens trying out multiple options across the fours and fives, whoever he's slid into the lineup on a given week has shown they can compete with the best and even provide an upset or two by day's end.
The Warriors' first matchup of the NAIA West Championship will come against No. 4-seeded Benedictine University Mesa from the Cal Pac Conference, who finished the regular season with a 4-8 record and 3-5 in Cal Pac duals. In the Redhawks' only crossover matches with the CCC, Benedictine finished 1-1 with a 3-2 win against Northwest University while falling 3-2 to Bushnell University. They're powered by first pairing of Kylie Bartel and Annika Wallace, a First Team All-Conference duo from the conference awards ceremony last night.
The lone CCC program in Corban's pool play will be represented by C of I, who are looking to complete the first season in their program's short history with a strong appearance in postseason play. While the Warriors went 3-0 against them over conference play, the Yotes were able to take at least one pairing in all three matches, with two of them ending in 3-2 fashion.
Corban's biggest challenge will more than likely come at the top of the pool when they battle No. 2-seeded University of Saint Katherine, who currently ranks higher than the Cal Pac's number one seed of Westcliff University in the national poll, coming in at No. 6 in the NAIA's most recent census. With three different All-Conference student-athletes and the reigning Cal Pac Player of the Year of Alexcis Morris represented in their top duo alongside fellow First Teamer Anne Mayfield, the Cal Pac's conference runner-up squad will look towards their Pair of the Year for direction and focus during their battle with Corban tomorrow morning at 9am.
Pool play coverage of the NAIA West Championships can be viewed on the tournament host's (Westcliff University) livestream site, which can be found by clicking HERE. Match results will be posted to the Corban Athletic stories on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (X), while individual pair results can be found on the Warrior beach volleyball schedule once they're made available by Westcliff.
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