Match Analysis - Gulf Shores

This time I actually mean to send this email...

This week is beach week. I dedicate the first three weeks of each month to the indoor side of the game and reserve the fourth week for beach-focused discussion. If you’re not interested in beach volleyball, and hate amazing displays of athleticism and teamwork, feel free to skip this one.

ALSO: On Wednesday, Feb 2 (aka “next week”), I’m doing a workshop with Luka Slabe, recently Assistant Coach for the gold medal-winning USA Women’s Olympic Team as well as the Head Coach of NC State. The workshop is at 12pm ET and will be open to all paid subscribers. The topic we’ll be “spring and off-season training,” which is topical because… it’s spring. If you have questions you want to make sure get included in the discussion, drop them in the comments.

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I love the NCAA Beach National Championship. It’s a pretty unique sporting event.

The structure of NCAA beach volleyball naturally makes for a pretty cool competition. Each school puts up 5 pairs, the school that wins 3 out of 5 wins the duel. What’s cool about the Gulf Shores event is that they put up 5 courts, and often have 5 pairs playing at one time.

Due to the natural flow of volleyball, they don’t all go at the same speed. Some pairs wrap up early, while the closer games take a little bit longer. And what this means is that, for a close duel, the schools might be split 2-2, with the result coming down to the last court still playing. And that court is often going to a third set.

Early in the duel, the spectators and team personnel are more spread out. As courts finish, both the fans and other players from each team start to converge on the final court. What’s also cool to me is this dynamic: typically in sports, the stars are the ones who decide the game in crunch-time. In NCAA Beach, it might be two freshman on the #5s pair who have to win the match for you:

And with beach volleyball normally being such an individual (or at least, a team of only 2) sport (compared to indoor), it’s fun to see a whole team rush the court after a pair wins.

Okay now that I’ve spoiled the result of that match, let’s break it down and see how The Triangle applies.