The Park University Gilbert beach volleyball team opened up the Cal Pac Tournament with two matches of pool play to determine seeding for the remainder of the tournament. They split the matches with a 3-2 loss to Bushnell and 5-0 sweep of Marymount California.
Match 1: Bushnell 3, Park Gilbert 2
Bushnell was an unfamiliar face for the Buccaneers in the Cal Pac Tournament. They are members of the Cascade Conference, but because the Cascade only has two beach programs, they were invited to the Cal Pac Tournament to meet the NAIA's minimum number of teams for a national tournament bid.
The Beacons, who only played NCAA D1 teams No. 6-ranked Corban in the regular season, needed all five matches to defeat the Buccaneers. It came down to Miranda Bacon and Jenifer Lauer (No. 1's), who were edged out in the third set.
The Buccaneers' two prior wins in that contest came from the No. 3's (Giuliana Kala'l Irvine/Haylee Kroczynski) and No. 4's (Georgia Romine-Black/Grace Hughes), who both sweeped their opponents.
Match 2: Park Gilbert 5, Marymount California 0
The silver lining to an opening loss to Bushnell: it set the Buccaneers up for a favorable matchup in the second pool play game against Marymount California. The Buccaneers swept the Mariners in both of their regular season meetings.
They kept up the trend in the tournament with perhaps their most dominant sweep of the Mariners yet. The No. 1's (Bacon/Lauer), No. 3's (Irvine/Kroczynski), No. 4's (Romine-Black/Hughes) and No. 5's (Jasmine Urban/Jessi Medlin) each picked up sweeps.
The only duel that went three sets was the No. 2's, but freshmen Megan Hicks and Annika Wallace were able to overcome a first set loss to win set two and dominate set three.
Tournament Seeding: The pool play results put the Buccaneers as the No. 6 seed going forward in the tournament.
Westcliff
Corban
Bushnell
Saint Katherine
Benedictine Mesa
Park Gilbert
Marymount California
What's Next: As the No. 6 seed, the Buccaneers will play No. 3 Bushnell again in a single-elimination matchup. That match will take place at 11 a.m. at the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. and the stream can be found HERE. The winner goes on to play the winner of No. 2 Corban vs. No. 7 Marymount California.
FULL RESULTS HERE
