End of Season Banquet via Email, 2024. And also the prior season...

 UNCW Beach Volleyball

End of Season Banquet Via Email, 2023-24

Also End of Season Banquet, 2022-23

And Also End of Season Banquets Via Email 2020 – 2022, a Trilogy

End of Season Banquet Via Email, 2023-24

Who were we gonna be in ’24? With only 10 beach-onlies in the fall and a couple returning dual-sporters, we had to be efficient. And we had to find us some new players from the indoor squad. And truth be told, with a 3-way tie for 5th (in an 8 team conference) in last year’s conference tourney, we had room for upward mobility.

Also, where were we gonna go? Having ventured to Boca, Corpus Christi, Owings Mills (just a stone’s throw from Federal Hill, MD), I was determined to take the team on a Santa Barbara Spring Break Sojourn. But would it break the bank?

We were picked to finish 4th in conference, behind Charleston. Still in the Sun Belt, for those keeping track. Picked to finish in the top half of the conference despite our uno dos audios last spring. Not sure if we should have been flattered or extra-motivated.

The season began with the traditional mandatory freshman parent meeting, dominated this year by Traci Schrock (our only freshman). For the 9th season in a row, the first fall practice took place on the 2 deep courts I secretly really enjoy behind Wagoner Dining Hall. They technically are managed by Housing (Seahawk Village) and it’s still next to impossible to raise or lower them. Since our sophomores were residents of Seahawk Village, we didn’t have to strain calf muscles and armpits to reach over the fence to let ourselves into the pool post-practices in the roughly 90 degree and humid heat. One of the nets is still a little high which I still think is good for training.

How we gonna beat Brazil on a low net?

Fall strength and conditioning was consistent and peppy, with M-W-F noon workouts and lots of mobility and agility thanks to new strength coach Elijah Cuffee out of Liberty University. Note to selves, 3 days of weights and agility >  2 days of weights per week.

The training focus was to be aggressive at the right times and patient at the right times, and to know what time it was. While crossovers Sarah “Sal” Thompson, Grace Melnick, and Jadyn Barry were helping the indoor squad, our Charlotte-based sophomore duo of Gabby LaPata and Lyvia Trimp took turns pushing all the upper classmen and Traci in vollis, Friday QOBs, ball control challenges, and getting stronger and faster.

Our fall competition day gave the team a chance to see how we stacked up against Charleston, Coastal, and S Carolina in Columbia. Word came back (I was with indoor) that we were competitive all-around, and a huge thank you to Justin Carson in the Seahawk Club to being our driver / sherpa for a beautiful day of competition.

We trained how to hold on defense and when to throw in some traps with the Sorum Shuffle. We made our float serves float (even Kaley! (eventually)) and our short serves short.

Team bonding once again involved getting craftsy at Casa de David with some upcycled yogurt containers and dirt to house the aloe pups that are descendants of our first plant-building exercise at Daniel’s / Brittany’s house some years ago. We spiced things up this year by adding rosemary and sage. Maybe thyme next year. Once again, some of the best design and naming ideas were imitations of fellow-teammate ideas, the sincerest form of flattery.

During our first month or so of training, we had observed that some new courts seemed to be under construction, hidden behind a green fence. They were prominently located, between the new freshmen dorms and the new Shore Dining Hall. Unofficial word was that they would open “sometime in the spring.”

Our October surprise came from an accidental conversation with one of the construction project managers. He let us know on a Wednesday that “by Friday,” the courts would be complete and opened for usage! Rather than allow for the possibility that anybody else might use the courts before we did, a plan quickly formed to ensure that the first sideouts on the new courts would be ours. With sparkling apple juice and clear plastic cups, we toasted our new home on a beautiful Friday afternoon at sunset. We more than enjoyed bouncing balls on the flat courts with regulation nets on great sand – not too jumpy, not too deep (if such a thing exists). We didn’t mind the balls flying past the 4 new basketball courts, or rolling up to the freshmen dorms. We quickly noticed the uptick in foot traffic – tons of freshmen and tour groups strolled by.

We also quickly noticed that some in the community assumed that our balls were everyone’s balls. Gracie Sistrunk quickly added “Team” to our “UNCW Volleyball” balls with her expert sharpie skills. Problem solved.

Flat and freshly raked courts weren’t totally new to us, since we had been at Capt’n Bill’s the past few springs, practicing and competing. They (and by they, I mean the owner John Musser, and occasionally Jonny the VB League Guru) leveled those things for us before every practice.

John is probably on a tractor right now, come to think of it. We hope to still use Capt’n Bill’s for special events and camps, since the people, the 12 courts, and the food are all amazing.

The official opening of the Shoreline Sports Complex came November 17, and came replete with speeches from Chancellor Volety, a couple directors of Rec Sports, and featured Sadie with those giant scissors for the official ribbon ceremony. Lots of pomp and publicity, but not as fun as our secret apple-cider christening.

Based on last season’s performance and a near top-30 RPI, we again qualified a top pair for the prestigious AVCA Fall Pairs Championship. Sadie Sharkey and Gabby LaPata represented us, and they played with their patented blend of scrappiness, steadiness, hustle, ball control, and fun. They gave a S. Carolina top pair an early “L” by fighting off match point and turning it into a dub for the Dub. After not upsetting FIU and LMU, we beat UNF’s top pair to finish in the middle of a super-strong 64-team pack, up about 10 spots higher than our finish a year ago. Progress.

Our fall wrapped up with Kaley giving us a solid reminder of how not to pass a skyball (I’ll find the video at some point, but it involves trying to spike it and sort of missing), and thanks to Morgan Smith, we had the coolest social media posts of any team in the land.

With the start of spring training, we welcomed Charlotte Cronister, Emily Hanlon, and Caitlyn Callahan from the indoor team, along with returners Sal Thompson, Jadyn Barry, and Grace Melnick. With amazing athleticism, size, and team-first mentalities, our beach team got better with each new addition.

We again learned how to hold on defense, and how to run traps. We visited Positive City, learned Wooden’s definition of success, and talked about body language and how to always be adding value in a group.

Our home opener on our brand new courts was an all-Charleston affair, with 2 duals on Friday and a pairs tourney on Saturday. Upon players request, we played under the lights on Friday, which was an amazing idea. With rain dumping about 45 minutes before go time, the set-up was looking a little sparse. No big sound system, but HC Dottie stepped in with her superb portable PA, so we had music and her on the mic announcing the pairings. The courts drained perfectly and we started almost on time, with a nice crowd of optimistic people.

We gave Charleston a warm welcome with back-to-back 5-0 sweeps under the lights, then we managed to pull some upsets and play ourselves in the pairs tournament final on Saturday, with our 2s Maddy Folks and Lyvia Trimp winning the whole thing.

The following weekend in Columbia, we couldn’t pull off the upset at South Carolina, even though Maddy Lyvia got the win at the 2s. Maddy just has something against the Gamecocks apparently. But we beat Coastal, Charleston, and Chattanooga our first weekend on the road. It was time for spring break, but where?

With unbelievable parent and friend of the program support (you know who you are) we got the go-ahead. The following weekend, we flew from MYR to LAX. I remain somewhat amazed that for 10 out of our 14 players, this was their first trip west of Arizona. And Emily Hanlon, a senior blocker from the indoor team, is from Chico (that is in California).

For 3 days, we sight-saw and trained at East Beach. We had yogurt parfaits with berries and granola at my dad’s house. Thanks dad! We met the Santa Barbara City College beach team, and a pick-up game of player-run queens may have broken out, one of my favorite moments of the season. We borrowed balls from Jordon Dyer who runs a club in SB, we met the very intense Mike Maas who says to just go and dig the ball already.

We dined at Los Arroyos in Montecito, we ate acai at Backyard Bowls, we ran some star drills. We saw the courthouse, UCSB, some elephant seals, my high school (go Dons) and downtown. As I had forecast from the late fall, a little rain fell on us here and there, but we are beach volleyball players and it’s all part of the fun.

An early Friday morning drive to Cal State Bakersfield was more scenic than I expected with mountains and farm fields. Different than the millions of pine trees and endless flatness we see in the Southeast. The courts are beautiful, with grass surrounding, proud palm trees protruding, and nothing but clear skies and 72 degree perfect weather.

In our first dual against Bakersfield (who took a dual off Cal Poly last year), we were tied 2-2, and for some, this might cause some tension.Not exactly where you want to be, unless you are seniors Jadyn Barry and grad student Charlotte Cronister. They came in clutch, winning us the dual in thrilling overtime. Yay team. We smoked CSUN 5-0 which may have hurt us the next day when they surprised us by playing better, shuffling around some players, and taking us 3-2. Dang. But after going 4-1 on the trip, one of my old AVP refs gave me a chuckle. A former AAA-rated player himself, Lars told/asked me “Fish, you’ve got some ballers! What does UNCW stand for?”

New this year, we had a mid-season mandatory Sun Belt event in Huntsville, Alabama, where the conference tournament would also take place. To help with seeding, we played folks not on our schedule, and while we didn’t sneak past Georgia State who didn’t drop a match all weekend, we did ourselves proud against Southern Miss and SFA by 4-1 scores. We beat ULM 3-2, and earned ourselves the #2 seed for the tournament. It didn’t hurt that we also beat Mercer 5-0 at S Carolina a couple weeks later.

A strong performance at the conference tournament left us with 2 losses to Coastal, both 3-2. But we also beat ULM twice to finish 3rd in the conference.

After the season, a couple of nice recognitions came our way: Sadie and Gabby were named the SunBelt Pair of the Year. That’s kind of cool. Ellie Bucci became our all-time wins leader, and she and Bri Haggerty were named to the All-Conference Tourney team along with Sadie and Gabby. Ellie also somehow snagged the prestigious Chancellor's Award, perhaps the highest honor for a UNCW student-athlete. Equally important in my book, we finished #1 among all UNCW athletic teams in the GPA department. You’re not blushing, I’m blushing.

Not sure we even had a #hashtag, and I was pretty lenient on Wooden memorization recitations while planking, and we maybe only took a couple trips to Positive City, but did we have us a season. Miss you guys already, and you couldn't have a more proud coach. Enjoy it and back to work we go…

--David Fischer

End of Season Banquet, 2022-23

Being an optimist and a pragmatist can get tricky. I’m in a state of denial about graduating Smash (Ashley Thompson) and almost graduating Tyla (Cutrie). They are what you want in a UNCW Beach Player, and I’m proud to know them and also I’m bad at goodbyes.

This year, for me, was amazing, fun and normal. Normal is not to be taken for granted. We were lean in numbers, with 4 crossovers joining our fall crew of 10, but the beachiness through and through was undeniable. On any day, or in any drill, any player could and often did outperform all her teammates. We took a staycation in Wilmington for spring break, and got some great training mixed in with a hike at Ft Fisher. We visited South Carolina a few times to play the usual strong suspects in the Gamecocks, Charleston, and Coastal. We played the Catabawans and the Erskines and we managed to finish with more wins than losses on the season at 15-14.

Making lineups means making choices, and Sadie Sharkey and Gracie Sistrunk did us proud in Huntsville at the Fall Pairs Tourney. After a natural adjustment to seeing the Pac 12 (“Wait is that UCLA warming up?” “Yes, Gracie.”) and everyone else all in one venue, we rattled off 3 wins in a row against the top pairs for another Pac 12 school (Oregon), the University of New Orleans, and Santa Clara. While Gracie took most of the spring off to support teammates, her shoulder, to keep Julie’s grad students entertained (Jalen and Austen), and occasionally dominate in one-armed Spikeball (nevermind the dislocated shoulder & repair surgery). She’ll get to be a sophomore again with another year of experience.

We again had a great mixture of bigs and smalls and some international flair. Canada gave us Grace Melnick, and she gave us the biggest block to train against and to play behind, and she thinks that now would be a good time to stretch if you don’t mind, and I agree. Often paired with Morgan Smith, they sided out like bigs and racked up multiple wins at the 6s. And kudos to Morgan for our amazingly professional Instagram presence. When I thought about posting non- professionally edited videos (picture me recording a video by holding my iPhone 10 in front of my computer screen), Morgan would politely reach out to me and talk about quality and standards, and maybe having some? Which I appreciate. 

Speaking about the future, we are about to have the most experienced returners of all time.

Next year, we’ll have seniors Sadie Sharkey, Ellie Bucci, Jadyn Barry, Bri Haggerty… that’s like 30 years of experience. And it somehow seems like Maddy Folks and Kaley McLaughlin have that much experience all by themselves, even though they’ll just be juniors next year. The more- experienced team often wins in beach volleyball, with the exception being that one time Mercer beat us with no seniors, and also no juniors (so basically a juco team). I’m totally over that one.

That being said, the future of this program is exciting.

Our now-sophomore class feels like one of the strongest sophomore classes in the country. All three are the most sensitive setters you’ve ever seen, and all three can put a ball down with some oomph. Lyvia Trimp, Sal (Sarah) Thompson, and Gabby LaPata: aim high and bring us up with you.

I say the season was normal and wonderful because we had a not-unusual level of injuries and sick days, and some nice wins (Charleston at their place, finally!) But also some wins that would have been nice (Charleston and Coastal, who both got us 3-2 at our place). Close losses at the conference tourney (We are now in the Sun Belt for those keeping track) will serve as fuel for our fire and a reminder that in sports, a B+ does not help bring about a victory. And we’ve got some good students.

Yes, we finished Top 30 in the computer-generated Pablo rankings. Yes, we produced the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year (Yay Gabby LaPata!) and 2 All-Conference Pairs in Sadie / Gabby and 1 st team: Smash and Bri. But I believe that regardless of the outcomes, we went for it. We took the big swings, hit the big serves, and made choices that will make us successful in the future.

As a coach, I’m most proud of our people and the character and quirkiness we bring every day. No two players on this team are exactly alike, but all of our practices and travels this year have been fun. Formal holiday party with karaoke, check. Elevation test at a Ft Fisher hike, check.

Building itineraries in small groups at Bitty & Beau’s on a cold and rainy Saturday morning might be my best idea of the year. Tyla and Smash, you are the heart of this team. Your performances on senior day are a neat memory, but I think I speak for everybody when I say I’m proud to know you and you make us all better.

Here’s to doing all we can this summer to set us up for an amazing ’24. But it’s okay to take a few minutes to reflect on the efforts and strides this team made to become the best we are capable of becoming.

End of Season Banquets Via Email 2020 – 2022, a Trilogy

2019-20

This season is, to me, more about what we got than what we lost when everything stopped.

It’s taken me a minute (okay, 4 years) to come to terms with everything and get this overdue banquet via email officially released, but hey. It was a jolt.

If we look at the 2019 / 20 season like a basketball game, we were in the 4th quarter when the arena had to clear out.

We undeniably had the most Florida squad, and for sure the most personality-laden squad ever assembled at UNCW. Florida stalwarts Reagan Evans and Chrissy Augustine and Lexie Hamilton are all amazing and unique personalities and players, yet they have to compete for the spotlight with newcomers Sabrina Reznik and Serah O’Keefe. And that’s just our Florida contingent.

Under the leadership of senior Raquel “Rocky” Rooney (our first ever beach-only freshman, and everyone’s dream partner) and the best beginner we’ve ever had in grad student Casey Goodwin, we trained all fall the way we always have. But the conversations have never been as lively. With Junior JM Lewandowski and sophomore Kristy Witte keeping us on task and always asking the right questions, the fun / smart / silliness of a Rachel Schaffer and a Tyla Cutrie is hard to explain.

Chrissy Augustine and Sabrina Reznik and Serah O’Keefe could hold down reality shows individually. But I digress.

Did Adam Fearing take us to Rally (past Atlanta) for our fall competition date again? We could not have a boring practice with Sabrina’s life observations and Serah’s ahead-of-the-curve innovations. It’s unproven whether the Swedish jump-set duo headed for the Olympics studied their fundamentals from Serah. She’s been jump-setting before they entered high school.

Well before spring break, Lexie’s parents coordinated an amazing week of training and Boca- appropriate activities for our spring break. We had access to a nearby church with plenty of courts. Assistant Coach Gina constantly guided us through the fall and the spring, and we had some talks about defense. And let the record reflect that we executed our spring break plan to a T.

We had team meals prepared by class, coordinated morning runs to the grocery story, and panels of judges determining who made the best meals. We had puzzles and solitaire for the introverts, piano and a pool and participatory games for the extroverts. We got the best parts of the trip in, and we had a confirmed dual and day of training at FAU, even though events were shutting down across the country.

Then word came in. We were ahead of schedule at a used book store, and I had to deliver the word that the season was over. But even though Florida shut things down and our competition at FAU was canceled,