Sand Faces Full Weekend at Stanford
EUGENE, Ore. – The Oregon sand volleyball team will get plenty of repetitions this weekend when it travels to the Stanford Invitational, beginning Friday, April 10. The Ducks will play in four dual competitions over the course of Friday and Saturday.
Competition will be played at the new sand volleyball stadium as well as at the Arillaga Center for Sports and Recreation courts.
The Ducks (0-1) will start by playing Stanford (5-3) at 2 p.m., on Friday followed with a match against Saint Mary’s (3-8) at 5 p.m. On Saturday, Oregon will take on California (4-10) at 9 a.m. and Cal Poly (1-9) at noon.
The Ducks will be looking for their first win of the season after falling to an undefeated Washington team in the season opener.
Sand Volleyball 101:
Each school will field five doubles teams ranked by ability, similar to how collegiate tennis is formatted. Each doubles team plays again the corresponding team or teams from other schools. In a dual meet, the winning team is the school winning three of five matches. Individual matches are two sets to 21, with a tiebreaker set to 15 if needed. All sets are rally scoring and must be won by two points. Tournament play will still employ flights. Points are awarded based on finish in each of the five brackets and a total team score determines the winner of the event.
Sand Volleyball Gains NCAA Sponsorship:
The sport of sand volleyball continues to grow at the collegiate ranks and was accepted as an NCAA championship sport beginning in the spring of 2016. As of January, 2015, 50 schools sponsored the sport, exceeding the minimum of 40 to request a NCAA championship.
