COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – USA Volleyball will host the Collegiate Beach Open, July 6-8 in Huntington Beach, California. The championship is the first of two in the month of July for the High Performance program.
The Collegiate Beach Open is the championship event for High Performance athletes in the U21/U23 age group. Three of the four pairs competing in the Collegiate Beach Open will also represent USA at the FIVB U21 World Championships, July 11-16, in Nanjing, China.
The three pairs in the FIVB U21 World Championships and that will compete at the Collegiate Beach Open are: Kathryn Plummer (Stanford)/Mima Mirkovic (California), Savannah Simo (UCLA)/Torrey Van Winden (UCLA), and Clay Messenger/Adam Wienckowski. This weeks’ competition will serve as a final tune-up before four teams embark onto the FIVB world stage. Joining them next week as part of Team USA will be Marcus and Miles Partain.
At the 2016 FIVB U21 World Championships, Van Winden finished fourth with Sarah Sponcil. Plummer has been to two FIVB age group World Championships, winning the U17 event in 2014, and placing third at the U19 event in 2016 with Mirkovic. Messenger is the lone male athlete with World Championship experience, having tied for 17th at the U19 event last year.
In California, the Collegiate Beach Open will have a maximum of 16 pairs (per gender) competing in pool play, with four pools of four teams. Following the conclusion of pool play on July 7, all pairs will advance to single elimination. On Friday, athletes will play through the Round of 16 and the quarterfinals. Saturday’s matches will begin at 9 a.m. PT, with teams playing out for fifth-place, through bronze, silver and gold medal finishes.
The seeds for pool play will be decided on July 6 during the morning technical meeting.