The Master's beach volleyball team have been playing their best volleyball at the end of the season, winning their final two matches to get the No. 3 seed in the GSAC Beach Volleyball Championship Tournament.
But despite continuing to play well and battle for wins, the Sandy Stangs fell short in the conference tournament, losing to No. 2-seed Arizona Christian 3-2 and then to No. 1 OUAZ 3-2 in the double-elimination tournament played at Huntington Beach, Calif. Friday.
In the first match of the day against the Firestorm, TMU lost the first two matches to the No. 2 and No. 4 pairs from ACU, with the fourth team of
Ashlyn Unruh and
Violet Avila taking their match to three sets before falling.
But the Mustangs got bounce-back wins from the No. 1 pair of
Evi Yates and
Annika Booker, as well as the No. 3 pair of
Breanna Brooks and
Isabela Rodriguez, to even the match at 2-2.
But the No. 5 pair of
Arianna DeRaffaele and Eleana Niehus could not make a comeback, losing by two in the final set.
After No. 4-seed Vanguard knocked off No. 1 OUAZ in their morning match, it set up a TMU/OUAZ match where the winner advanced and the loser went home.
And in this battle, four of the five matches went to three sets.
No. 4 pair of Unruh and Avila won the first match in two sets, but No. 2 pair of
Zoe Yates and
Faith Wada fell short in their 3-set match to make the overall match tied at 1-1.
After the Sandy Stangs' No. 5 pair lost in three, TMU's No. 1 pair of Yates and Booker won their match in three to tie it up at 2-2.
It all came down to the threes. The Master's
Isabela Rodriguez and
Breanna Brooks, playing in her final season, took the first set 21-15, but dropped the second 22-20. The third set was a fight, with all of the participants and fans crowding around this final court to see who would advance and who would go home. In the end it was the Spirit that prevailed, coming away with a 15-13 final set win to move on in the tournament.
"It was a heartbreaker," said TMU Head Coach Annet Davis. "Our girls worked so hard, and to lose against ACU 2-3 and then to lose to No. 1 in the nation by two points... Ugh! It was tough but well fought. Our girls played some of their best volleyball in the last two weeks. And that's what you want. And I think what they are most proud of is the team culture and the amount of love and support they felt for each other. The support they felt in the end was amazing."
The Master's will now await their fate for the NAIA National Championship Tournament. Going into the GSAC tournament, the Sandy Stangs were ranked No. 10 in the most recent NAIA poll. However, 4-1 wins over RV Hope International and No. 6 Saint Katherine at the end of the regular season, added to the battles against No. 3 in the nation Arizona Christian and No. 1 OUAZ on Friday, should raise the Mustangs' stock. Eight teams make it to to Greeneville, Tenn., home of the national championships on April 25-27, with four teams getting automatic bids as conference champions and four teams getting at-large berths.
The NAIA will reveal the eight teams to vie for a national championship on Monday.
