YOUNGSVILLE, La. – The HCU beach volleyball team is headed to Sugar Beach this coming Friday and Saturday for four matches at the Sugar Beach Bash hosted by Southeastern at the Youngsville Sports Complex with the Huskies' first Southland Conference opponent, New Orleans, on the schedule along with Tulane, a rematch with No. 20 Tampa and Stephen F. Austin.
The Huskies' duals vs. Tulane, on Friday, and Tampa, on Saturday, will both be streamed on
Varsity Sports Now with Steven Beyer providing play-by-play.
Seniors
Kristen Kleymeyer and
Abbey Bufkin are tied for the team lead individually with four wins each. Kleymeyer and Bufkin teamed up as the Huskies' (1-11, 0-0 SLC) No. 1 pair on the final day of the Tampa Invite 2 last Saturday and earned a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) win over the 20
th-ranked Spartans. The win boosted Kleymeyer into sixth in program history for career wins with 47, just five away from entering the top five. HCU's duo of
Rachel Heilbrun and
Tatum Lockhardt, a pair of freshmen, also earned a win last Saturday over Coastal Carolina as the team's No. 4 pair.
Friday, Mar. 15, sees the Huskies and Privateers (6-5, 0-1 SLC) face off in a Southland Conference matchup at 11:00 a.m. Last weekend, UNO traveled to Columbia, S.C. for the Wheeler Beach Bash where they posted a 2-2 record with wins over Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee Tech while falling to North Florida and South Carolina. HCU owns a 14-5 all-time record vs. the Privateers but UNO has won three of the last five, including knocking the Huskies out of the SLC Championship Tournament last spring.
Later in the day on Friday, at 3:00 p.m., the Huskies will take on the Tulane Green Wave (10-4). The Green Wave was in Fort Worth, Texas last weekend for the Horned Frog Challenge, dropping a pair of duals to UC Davis and TCU on day one before rebounding to take a pair on day two over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and SFA. Tulane's twos, threes and fours all won both matchups on day two with the No. 4 pair of Samantha Green and Skylar Ensign went 3-1 for the tournament.
Tampa (7-7) split its four duals last weekend at its home tournament that also featured HCU, defeating the Huskies and Coastal Carolina but losing to fourth-ranked Florida State and Florida Gulf Coast. Seniors Madison Brunick and Keely Hamilton lead the Spartans with a 10-4 record as a pair, including a 7-1 mark playing at the fours. Sophomore twins Hailey and Nevaeh Wolfe are 7-7 as a pairing with a 6-3 record when playing at the threes.
SFA (5-7) fell in all four of its matchup last weekend at the Horned Frog Challenge in Fort Worth but took a point of both Tulane and TCU. Three of the Ladyjacks' five wins this season have come against SLC members, defeating McNeese twice and also beating UNO. SFA's No. 1 pair of junior Madison Hall and freshman Katherine Hansen are leading the way with an 8-4 record that includes a pair of wins over Tulane and one against Utah.
Following the weekend's tournament, the Huskies will travel in-state to Austin, Texas on Wednesday, Mar. 20, to take on Washington and Texas at the Berry M. Whitaker Sports Complex.
