The NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship is all set. Nine auto-bids and eight at-large berths. There are top dogs in the mix but there are a bunch of upstarts chomping at the bit for the Natty hardware! Among those teams were 3 first-ever appearances for UT Chattanooga, Washington and Arizona St.! Instead of our normal panel we thought we'd jump on a…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features two of Norway’s Beach Volley Vikings: Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen. Hendrik and Berntsen are enjoying a normal learning curve and path to success, a several-years buildup that seems almost flat when compared to the rocket ship that has been Anders Mol and …

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features a new guest! Abby Van Winkle joins the podcast fresh off a successful debut on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, in which she and Savvy Simo – who also joins as a host/guest – won a bronze medal at a NORCECA before stunning Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Mader…

THE NCAA MEN'S D1-2 TOURNAMENT IS ON! 3/4ths of our coaching panel dive into the matchups, but not before discussing the recently release AVCA All-America teams, the Freshman of the Year, Assistant Coach of the Year and the Coach of the Year! See what Dan Friend of Lewis (at least for half the episode), Brad Rostratter of UCSD and Jay Hosack of Geo…

On this episode of the Road to Paris, Travis Mewhirter breaks down the race to the Paris Olympic Games following the Xiamen Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. As the Olympic race winds down, it just gets wilder and wilder and wilder, as: Marco Grimalt and Esteban Grimalt won their first medal of the Olympic qualifying period, coming …

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features our most popular guest of all-time: Zana Muno. Zana has had the most interesting few years, playing with some of the greatest in the game – Sarah Pavan, Brandie Wilkerson, Kerri Walsh Jennings, to name a few – but has struggled to maintain consistency on the c…

On this episode of The Road to Paris, Travis Mewhirter breaks down the most recent Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event: The Tepic Elite16. Switzerland's Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli won their first gold medal as a team, while Sweden's David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig continue their absurd finals run, with seven straight now and a second straight…

With the conference championships concluded the CVW Coaches' Panel will review some of the many eye-catching results and standout performances by teams and athletes. With the auto-berths awarded and the At-Large berths made known we ask the controversial question: "Did the NCAA Committee get it right?", and of course, "Are the seedings correct?" As…

We're about 10 days out from conference tournaments around the nation in Gul Shores, AL. Kylie Wickley of Texas and Jaden Whitrmarsh of UCLA discuss the Texas' season finale as the Longhorns get their first-ever top-20 program win. From there we run into the top 11-ish and focus on the Center of Effort Challenge which saw a handful of upsets while …

Our missing panel member, Jay Hosack of George Mason couldn't make the earlier recording didn’t so we decided to do a “CVW After Dark” episode discussing the final week of conference play and the upcoming conference tournament matches. Jay brings attention to some of the top performers, looks at potential AVCA National Player of the Year candidates…

As we conclude the regular season for the remaining 5 auto-NCAA berth conferences the coaching panel of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis and Theo Edwards of CSUN discuss some of the top matches in final week of the conferences’ play. Will a new number one emerge in the AVCA poll? What did we see in the quarterfinal rounds of the MIVA? W…

This episode of the Road to Paris, breaking down the Olympic beach volleyball race with Travis Mewhirter, recaps the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Guadalajara Challenge. What a weekend it was, especially fun since we brought Daniel Freitas, aka Producer Thrito, along for the ride, and he cranked out highlight after highlight and provides us with …

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes, one of the best beach volleyball teams in the world coming off a silver medal at the season-opening Doha Elite16 – a tournament in which they alas vanquished Brazilians Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa. We chat a…

Week 14 saw a great docket of top 5 teams squaring off, regular season champions in some conferences and in one case a tournament field and seedings set. The CVW crew breaks down what happened in Week 14 and inserts their insights, opinions and in some cases, complaints. In addition, we discuss Jay's 1st-ever Conference/NCAA MVB Tournament Bracket,…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features one of the best and brightest teams in all of beach volleyball: Miles Partain and Andy Benesh. This is, honestly, maybe the best, most insightful, most vulnerable episode we’ve ever done, and I cannot recommend it enough. Miles Partain and Andy Benesh chat abou…

With Week 6 in the books and a handful of top 20 teams idle the student-athletes drive the discussion-- which essentially ended up being a "Death Volley Invitational" summary/recap episode and chatting about how the top teams are getting it done. With that, we discuss some of the key performers during the week, athletes with milestone achievements-…

Welcome back to the Road to Paris, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down the race to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. This episode follows the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Recife Challenge and Saquarema Challenge, covering: - How Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano just delivered the knockout punch to Pedro Salgado and Guto Carvalhaes - Sophie Bukove…

Things are "kinda" sorting out across the conferences, but still not secure with surprise results, injuries and adjustments playing key factors to what we're seeing in the final few weeks of the 2024 regular season. As always, the Coaching Panel runs down summaries of what's happening in each of the NCAA-tourney bid conferences, The Big West, Confe…

In this episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, we have one of the most unique teams on the AVP and Beach Pro Tours in Tim Brewster and Kyle Friend. What makes them unique? They are, as far as we know, the only male partners who are also dating, making for a fascinating dynamic on and off the court. We get into t…

The CVW BEACH TOP 20 Student-Athlete panel chimes in on the action in Week 5 that saw yet another handful of upsets ranging from No. 18 GCU of No. 10 LSU all the way down to Big West teams in the top 10 hammering away at each other. The CVW crew mentions top performances by TCU and USC pairs as well as Arizona St. From there the crew talks about th…

In Week 12 it seems March Mayhem has re-entered the scene with the MIVA Conference seeing a handful of unexpected results! With only 2-3 weeks remaining in the regular season and conference tournaments around the corner, expect more mayhem! Not excluded from the mayhem is the Big West Conference—with only one matchup during the week that resulted i…

Week 4 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season and East Meets West in Manhattan Beach, CA along with the FAU Invite in Pompano Beach, FL took center stage as a lot of top 20 teams went at it. Kelly Belardi of Stanford, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA and Kylie Wickley of Texas gathered to chat on what we saw in Week 4 as well as through the mid-point of the se…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Sophie Bukovec, one of the top players in Canada and a silver medalist at the 2022 Beach Volleyball World Championships. The last three years haven’t been, as Bukovec says, “exactly seamless,” with three partners in as many seasons, but like when most things d…

Week 11 brought another 1 vs. 2 matchup resulting in what will most likely be new No. 1-- again. With that we discuss a handful of the top matches of the week but try a new piece for our Coaches' Panel: "If You Were on the NCAA Committee" segment! The coaches discuss what the 20243 NCAA Tournament would look like today given the 8-team scenario and…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features our annual Spring-is-here episode with our neighbors up North: Sam Schachter and Dan Dearing. Per usual, they dropped by Hermosa Beach for a month for a pre-season training camp, gearing up for a final push at the 2024 Paris Olympics. On this episode, we chatt…

This week we jump into our first special episode with the East Meets West in Manhattan Beach this weekend. With that, the Seminoles of Florida St. "take over" the show to talk about their start to 2024, how deep and talented the 'Noles squad is as they've been hovering at No. 4 in the AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls. They're chomping at the bit t…

Week 10 saw another No. 1 team go down not just once, but twice at the Outrigger Invitational in Hawaii. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles the Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge brought in a battle of 4 of the top 12 teams in the nation. In Northern California, two top-10 teams duked it out for split. The Big West got heated as Long Beach St. and UCSB squared off wit…

This episode of The Road to Paris, Travis Mewhirter’s breakdown of the Olympic Beach Volleyball race to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, follows the season-opening Doha Elite16, where Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot won a shocking gold (not shocking that they won, but shocking in how they did it), Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova took a crit…

Episode 215: College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, 3/5/24 This week Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Alli Hansen of Florida St. and Kylie Wickley of Texas jump into the show (missing Kelly Belardi of Stanford) talking about what they as athletes have seen so far 1/4th into the season (aka, 2 weeks). What's the talent like, what teams are playing well and…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features an annual fan-favorite: Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. In for a month-long training camp in California, Nuss and Kloth are perhaps the most unique team in the sport, and maybe the most unique pair USA Volleyball has ever had. Living in Louisiana? Five-foot-6 def…

This week didn't see a whole lot of shakeups around the nation, however we're discovering the MIVA is getting very interesting with Ball St., and Ohio St. sitting at the top. There was an LA rivalry matchup, GCU dominance, Long Beach St. on a winning streak and Hawaii rolling along, however the guys talk "chirping and chippiness" in the game. The g…

Welcome back to the Road to Paris! Travis Mewhirter previews the final three months of the Olympic qualification cycle, which is about to begin with this week's Doha Elite16. Doha kicks off a sprint of the next three months, which feature 10 events on four continents. On this episode: - Travis provides a statistical analysis projecting the odds for…

While Alli of Florida St. tends to homework, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Kelly Belardi of Stanford and Kylie Wickley of Texas join Rob on recapping the Week 1 action of the NEW Collegiate Beach Volleyball season! We try our best to talk about the CollegeBeachVB.com Top 20 teams and top athletes. Contributor Kelly garnered Most Oustanding Pair (with As…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Michael Gervais, one of the most well-known sports psychologists in the world and the man who worked with Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and April Ross and is currently working with Olympians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson. Gervais is t…

In Week 8 of the the NCAA Men's season we are still seeing intense parity as multiple teams visit "Splitsville"-- splitting their pairs of matches during the week. Along with that we're seeing changes in lineups, some intentional, some not. One thing is for sure-- the competitive levels REMAIN. As always, the guys discuss the results, pick their to…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball With Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features one of our favorite coaches in the world: John Mayer. As a player, Mayer was one of the best defenders of his generation, the 2015 AVP Defensive Player of the Year and the 2015 AVP MVP. Since 2018, he has been a full-time coach, leading the LMU Beach Volleybal…

Continuation from Episode 209, CVW Beach Top 20 Intro show with the Beach Top 20's new Student-Athlete Contributors! UCLA's Jaden Whitmarsh gets her own episode because of a schedule conflict with the Beach team when we recorded Episode 209 however, it works out perfectly so that we can find out about her Volleyball/Beach Volleyball career from WAV…

The CVW panel dives quickly into the recap with "The Elephant in the Room" segment that features our Coaches' matches during week 7. Lindenwood got the better end of a match vs. Dan's Flyers, Brad and the Tritons were at the SIAC/Big West Invite in Long Beach, and we discuss Jay's and Theo's wins for the week as well. It was another solid week of a…

Note: We recorded this episode pre-AVCA Beach Top 20 Poll and pre-CollegeBeachVB.com's poll and player/team awards. The 2024 NCAA Collegiate Beach Volleyball Season is just days away! With that, we thought it would be a great idea to do an "Introduction Episode" for most of our contributors (Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA had a team dinner) to find out th…

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, is our season-opening mailbag episode. As always, thank y’all tons for the questions. If you want to ask a question for the pod, drop one in the comments section or send us a DM on Instagram. With the AVP schedule being released the day before we recorded, much of the …

More lower AVCA-ranked-teams have taken down higher-ranked teams, but the pane all agree that these are not upsets! No. 1 Long Beach St. dueled No. 4 UCLA with a split leaving only one remaining undefeated team-- Grand Canyon! Strong performances by Grant Sloane of UCLA, Hilir Henno of UCI, Mason Briggs of Long Beach St. and Kevin Schuele of PFW to…

At USC Beach Volleyball, Dain Blanton, Delaynie Maple and Megan Kraft are looking to do something unprecedented in the world of NCAA Beach Volleyball: Win four consecutive NCAA Championships. They’ve won three straight, with 2023 being the biggest surprise of the bunch, if there is such a thing at USC. Now, they’re back for a fourth, doing everythi…

Episode 207, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, Week 5 Recap & Week 6 Preview, 2/5/24 With the play that transpired in Week 5 of the 2024 D1-2 Men's Volleyball season we have to call this "The Tumultuous Top 20!" There were many good battles discussed from this last week along with our Coaching Panel's insights. Too much to write in a descrip…

The UCLA Beach Volleyball team has been one of the most dominant in the young history of NCAA Beach Volleyball. Three of its four decorated seniors – Jaden Whitmarsh, Devon Newberry, Lexy Denaburg – came on SANDCAST to chat about the last dance for this group, and how much winning the elusive NCAA Championship would mean, especially in a transition…

This last week brought more than a handful of upsets and a multitude of stellar play in the young 2024 NCAA Men's Volleyball season. From Penn St.'s TWO upsets of Ohio St., the remaining undefeated teams of GCU, Stanford and Long Beach St. it has been pure intensity and excitement from week to week. The share their thoughts on Week 4 action, their …

Betsi Flint is, at 31 years old, somehow a veteran on the AVP and Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, a seven-time AVP champion who is currently ranked in the top 10 in the world alongside Julia Scoles. But she is far more than another talented defender. Flint occupies a rare space in the world of beach volleyball: A mom who continues to make her full…

It’s the Dan Friend Birthday Episode! In this week’s episode Dan Friend shares some information on the recent approval of Division 2 Championships and how it could be implemented in the next few years. Obviously growth in the men’s game is being seen throughout D1 as well with the addition of Menlo College, Vanguard and now William Jessup Universit…

Cody Caldwell is one of the faster-rising talents in beach volleyball, both on the AVP and Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. After playing indoors in Greece and France, Caldwell decided to “try my hand on the beach,” and the results have been promising, with three career Tour Series wins and three third place finishes in 2023 alone. All of this has …

NOTE: Interviewed Jacob, before the MIVA weekly awards came out. Congrats, Jacob on being selected MIVA Offensive Player of the Week! Interview with Senior OH, Jacob Pasteur of the current No, 4 Ohio St. Buckeyes, who are off to a stupendous 4-0 start for the 2024 season. A lot of the success has been due to the play of Jacob as he gears up for the…

This week’s episode starts out my remembering and honoring Tom Tait, the founder of Penn St. Men’s and Women’s Volleyball who passed late last week. He was the catalyst of volleyball in Pennsylvania, the East Coast and EIVA. Coach Tait invested his life into volleyball and the people who were around him—including Russ Rose (PSU WVB) and Mark Pavlik…