USC, UCLA compete for NCAA beach volleyball title

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Two-time Pac-12 Champion USC is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship in Gulf Shores, Ala., May 5-7. The Trojans look to defend their national title from a year ago. UCLA was also selected the No. 2 overall seed in the eight-team field.

The Trojans and Bruins are the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, respectively. USC is coming off winning the Pac-12 team title on Friday in Tucson, Ariz. The team is 34-1 on the season, with its only loss coming at the Pac-12 Championships at the hands of the Bruins, snapping a 62-dual match win streak in the semifinal before bouncing back to win in the title match. The Trojans are led by Pac-12 Pairs Champion Kelly Claes and Sara Hughes, who have lost just once in nearly two seasons.

The Bruins are 29-4 on the season and the second-ranked team in the country. UCLA was the runner up at the Pac-12 Championships, losing to the Trojans by just a couple of points in the deciding three-set dual. The Bruins are led by twin sisters Nicole and Megan McNamara who are 26-6 on the season, all on court one.

Following USC and UCLA as the top-two seeds in the tournament, Pepperdine is the No. 3 seed. Florida State secured the fourth seed, Hawai’i and Long Beach State earned the No. 5 and No. 6 spots, respectively, followed by East Region-selections No. 7 LSU and No. 8 South Carolina.

The championship will be held Friday through Sunday, May 5-7, in Gulf Shores, Alabama, hosted by the city of Gulf Shores, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Orange Beach Sports Commission. The event will be televised live by Turner networks, with truTV providing live coverage on Friday, May 5, and Saturday, May 6, from 2-5 p.m. ET and the championship round airing on TBS on Sunday, May 7, at 1 p.m. Additional live-streaming coverage of every court in each match of the tournament will be available on NCAA.com.

The field was selected from the 65 NCAA institutions sponsoring the sport of beach volleyball. Three teams were selected from the East Region and three teams were selected from the West Region. The remaining two teams were selected at-large from the teams across the country. All eight teams were then seeded.

For all championship site match times and more information about the championship, log on to www.ncaa.com/beachvolleyball.