A squad of alphas.
That’s what University of Southern California coach Dain Blanton described the team he was assembling heading into this 2021 NCAA beach volleyball season. The last addition to that squad of alphas? Julia Scoles.
“She’s the perfect type of player: tenacious, loves to work out, very physical and passionate about playing,” Blanton said when Scoles announced her transfer from the University of Hawai’i to USC. “That’s one of the biggest things in my criteria: Are you passionate? Do you want to play on another level? She answers all those questions. We’re putting together a pretty heavy squad of alphas who want to go hard.”
They all went hard in Gulf Shores, Alabama, at the NCAA Championships this past weekend. It was Scoles, that final alpha, who aced two in a row to win the first set of her NCAA Championship match against UCLA. It was Hailey Harward, another alpha who transferred in from Long Beach State, who picked up her first win of the weekend in the match that mattered most: the final against UCLA. It was Tina Graudina, the alpha future Olympian out of Latvia, who teamed with talented freshman, Meagan Kraft, to win on the top court, despite split-blocking for the first time in either of their careers.
It was those three courts, led by three bona fide alphas, who picked up the three necessary wins to top UCLA and bring the National Championship back to USC. The college beach volleyball format features five pairs from each team. Those five pairs match up with five pairs from the opposing school. The team who wins three of the five pairs matches wins the overall match. On Sunday, USC won 3-1, with the final pairs match remaining unfinished, as the results of that pair would not have influenced the overall match.
“Me and Haley [Hallgren] have been the underdogs this whole tournament,” Harward said after her victory on court three of the finals. “That was our first win in Gulf Shores. We knew we were bound to win eventually. I trust her so much as my partner. She’s a senior and she’s graduating and I love her so much and we knew it was our last run on the court so we came in hyped.”
It would have been difficult not to have been hyped for this match. It had the billing of a Hollywood narrative: A rematch of the Pac-12 Conference Championship, where UCLA beat out the Trojans; a clash of the two most prestigious programmes in the sport’s young history; two of the biggest rivals in all of college sports, playing for the biggest title in their sport.
“Words can’t describe it,” Blanton said. “This was such a team effort. I have an amazing coaching staff and an amazing support staff. The players, this is them. I just try to orchestrate it and get it in line. It’s just unbelievable. I’m overwhelmed.”
This was, technically, Blanton’s first full season as coach of the Trojans. When he took over from longtime coach Anna Collier in 2020, his inaugural year was cut short due to the Covid pandemic. As many of our life’s lows can be, it was a blessing in disguise.
In that extra year, he had time to assemble the alphas.
He had an extra year with Sammy Slater, a senior who has been such an integral part of this programme since she won 31 matches as a freshman. He had an extra year with Haley Hallgren, who will finish her USC career with 84 victories, the final of which was a critical one in this NCAA final. He had a last season with Joy Dennis, who did not get to finish her NCAA final match on court four with Delaynie Maple, but will conclude a magnificent career with 103 wins.
Blanton had an extra year to bring in freshmen stars Maple and Kraft, whose impact was felt immediately, with both entering the starting lineup as soon as they were able. He had an extra year to groom sophomores Audrey and Nicole Nourse, who put together a 27-4 season and were a linchpin on court five for this Trojan team. He had an extra year to bring in Scoles, who brought with her the biggest serve on the beach. And it was that big serve, that mighty alpha serve, that made all the difference, as she delivered with with devastating effect.
“You go down the line,” Blanton said. “Everybody contributed and that’s the only way you pull this off.”
Quick links:
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
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