COLLEGIATE SAND
SARA
SCRAMBLE: Natural de- fensive skills convinced Sara Hughes to accept a sand
scholarship to Southern California in 2013.
(Photo: John Gelderman)
Switching to sand
N
ow that the fi rst NCAA sand vol- leyball season is off and running and a number of players who would otherwise be gobbling up indoor scholar- ships are choosing to play outdoors, USA Volleyball Director of Beach Programs Ali Wood Lamberson is hearing this question more and more: “Are you telling kids not to play indoor?”
Her answer: “We’re absolutely not telling them not to play indoor. What we are telling them is that if they want to be an elite beach volleyball athlete, they need to play more beach. Most kids play 10 months of indoor and two months of beach, and that’s simply not enough time on the beach to achieve a high level of competitiveness.” That was exactly the conclusion drawn by Summer Ross, Abby Hornacek and Sara Hughes, all of whom are gifted indoor players but decided recently to put their
By Don Patterson If you’re wondering if NCAA sand volleyball is destined
to be a big hit, look no further than three elite volleyball players – Summer Ross, Abby Hornacek and Sara Hughes – who have decided to follow their passion and focus their energies on the beach game.
long-term athletic efforts into beach. For Ross, who grew up in Carlsbad, Calif., that meant transferring to Pepperdine University from the University of Washington, where she started last fall at outside hitter on the Huskies’ volleyball team. She’s now partici- pating in the fi rst NCAA sand season as a member of the Waves’ sand team, which is one of 15 schools offering the sport this year. Hornacek is a senior at Xavier College Prep in Phoenix and a setter/hitter for Spiral Volleyball club in Chandler, Ariz. She had already accepted a scholarship to set for the University of Kansas but changed her mind when she found out that NCAA sand vol- leyball would launch this spring. Now, she’s headed for University of Southern California to play beach.
Hughes, a high school junior at Mater Dei in Santa Ana, Calif., is an opposite/set- ter for Mizuno Long Beach 17 Rockstar
28 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
and was the most valuable player of the 16 Open division last year at the USA Volley- ball Girls’ Junior National Championships. She has already committed to USC – she’ll start school in the fall of 2013 – for a full sand scholarship, a decision she says was extremely diffi cult because it meant saying goodbye to the indoor game.
“It was really one of the hardest deci- sions I’ve ever had to make because I’ve played both beach and indoor for so long, and I love them both,” Hughes says. “I knew it would be hard to give up indoor, but my gut feeling was that I should play beach. I’ve wanted to play beach ever since I was eight years old. I just love it. And that was the deciding factor.”
All indications are that opportunities are going to continue to grow for players like Ross, Hughes and Hornacek who want to focus on beach and also for players whose
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