ASU Beach Volleyball: Sun Devils open 2018 poised for excellence

Coming off their best season in program history, the ASU beach volleyball team will look to build the next steps of a winning culture in 2018.

Who said beach volleyball can’t thrive in Arizona?

After nearly 10 months of waiting, the Sun Devils will enter their 2018 season with high aspirations in just their fifth year of program existence.

Second-year coach Brad Keenan returns to Tempe this season, where his team will look to follow up a year that included 16 victories and a 3-2 record in Pac-12 play.

The Sun Devils will return 10 players from last year’s team, including two members that landed Pac-12 All-Academic honors in Kwyn Johnson and Mia Rivera.

Joining ASU for the 2018 beach volleyball season will be standout indoor libero Halle Harker. Harker finished first in the Pac-12 during the 2017 indoor season with 626 digs, good enough to move her into second place on the all-time Sun Devil dig list with 2,029 in her career.

This season, coach Keenan will be confronted with the challenge of integrating his star returnees with six freshmen on this year’s roster. The losses of the team’s three all-conference honorees last season, Bianca Arellano, Whitney Follette and Oluoma Okaro, provide holes in the lineup that Keenan will have to address as the season goes on.

Going into this weekend’s Sun Devil Tournament Challenge, Keenan will comprise his first two teams based on a mix of his experienced and young returnees. Johnson and Rivera will play as the No. 1 team, while sophomores Katelyn Carballo and Ellyson Lundberg will make up the No. 2 team.

The teams comprising this year’s Sun Devil Challenge are no fluke. Joining ASU at the PERA Club this weekend will be the defending national champions in USC, 14th-ranked Cal Poly and an up-and-coming program in Nebraska.

The Devils will play their first game of the Sun Devil Challenge against the Trojans at 6 p.m. Saturday. Let’s take an inside look at each opponent ASU will face this weekend.

No. 1 USC Trojans

It’s no coincidence that the Trojans are one of the premiere programs in collegiate beach volleyball.

Joined by the cool waves of the Pacific Ocean that brush upon several beaches in southern California, USC holds a tradition made up of one of the nation’s greatest places to play the sport.

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Led by seventh-year coach Anna Collier, the Trojans will enter their 2018 campaign looking to capture their fourth consecutive national championship. Her Trojans teams have won 100 of their last 103 matches, including a 38-1 season for last year’s championship team.

USC will enter this season having graduated four All-Americans from last year’s roster, including two-time defending Pac-12 Player of the Year Kelly Claes and her partner, Sara Hughes. The duo was also named the conference’s Pair of the Year.

However, this year will be far from a rebuild. Returning for the Trojans will be a talented core comprised of 2017 Pac-12 Second Team honoree Terese Cannon and all-conference Freshman Team honoree Joy Dennis. These returnees will be complemented by Point Loma transfer Brianna Sizemore and Colorado State indoor transfer Alexandra Poletto.

Along with the upperclassmen, Collier’s team brings in a talented freshman class of six players to fill in the gaps from the senior class.

The Trojans and the Sun Devils squared off twice last season, where USC would win both matches by scores of 5-0 and 4-1.

Facing a program at the height of USC early on will be a great test that Keenan will look to use to elevate his team’s level of play at the beginning of the season.

Nebraska Cornhuskers

Following Saturday night’s game for the Sun Devils will be an 11 a.m. Sunday showdown against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Last season, the Cornhuskers finished with an overall record of 5-7, inlcuding a notable 2-3 defeat at the hands of Arizona State on March 23 in Tempe.

The 2017 indoor volleyball national champions are led by their same coach, John Cook, who is similarly looking to establish a championship caliber program in their beach team’s sixth year of existence.

As an indoor coach, Cook is the fifth-winningest coach in NCAA history with 692 wins and four national championships.

Crossing over from the indoor team will be All-American setter Kelly Hunter, freshmen outside hitters Sami Slaughter, Anezka Szabo and Jazz Sweet, defensive specialists Kenzie Maloney and Hayley Densberger and middle blocker/basketball player Allie Havers.

Granted, playing indoor volleyball is very different from beach volleyball. Playing in the sand requires much more lateral movement and an emphasis on placement rather than power.

However, this Nebraska team should be another great challenge for Arizona State. When you’re playing the defending beach and indoor national champions in a span of less than 24 hours, you know you’ll be in for a tough weekend.

No. 14 Cal Poly Mustangs

The Mustangs have already been battle-tested in 2018, and the season just started last night.

In their march around the Valley, Cal Poly faced three ranked opponents in the same day, pulling out 3-2 victories over No. 2 Pepperdine and No.10 Grand Canyon while falling 2-3 to No. 6 LSU.

Coach Todd Rogers enters his third year as head coach with sky-high expectations, looking to take off with a team that had accumulated a record of just 23-35 over his first two seasons as head coach.

In the offseason, the Mustangs bolstered their roster with a grand overhaul, as they welcomed six freshmen with backgrounds of Junior Olympic experience and playing in Junior Beach Championships.

The Mustangs also added three key transfers to their roster, including sophomore Torrey Van Winden, who helped lead UCLA’s beach volleyball team to the NCAA Tournament last season, and Tia Miric, a Canadian beach player that has won various championships and medals throughout the Toronto area.

On Sunday, the Sun Devils will have to be wary of a team that will have played five matches in the past three days. The exhaust factor could be a point of emphasis for Keenan’s girls in attacking with cut shots and forcing the Mustangs to constantly move on defense

However, that doesn’t mean ASU should take their opponent lightly. Cal Poly has several girls experienced in playing high-caliber beach volleyball, and they’ll be ready to play come Sunday afternoon.

Next: ASU Basketball: Sun Devils face must-win matchup in Corvallis

Keep it right here for the latest updates recaps from the ASU beach volleyball team throughout this weekend’s Sun Devil Challenge.