Tulane Green Wave beach volleyball dropped a match to No. 3 Texas but bounced back to knock off No. 19 Washington 4-1 at the Longhorn Showdown.
The Tulane Green Wave beach volleyball team will have to wait a little longer to continue their hot streak on the sand. Their upcoming Longhorn Showdown this weekend had an amended schedule due to forecasted severe weather, including lightning, in the Austin area. The event put on by the University of Texas moved the Green Wave to have three trials on Friday before a final contest on Saturday morning. They entered the contest 14-8 on the season ahead of the four duals in Texas that kick off the back half of their season campaign.
Originally, Tulane was set to play two duals on Friday and one on Saturday morning at 8:00 am, which would’ve concluded the round-robin format prior to moving onto the seeded duals. The tournament will keep that format but condensed it to have each team play thrice on Friday and conclude the entire round-robin slate in one afternoon, with Saturday solely having two seeded duals.
The Wave started with a contest against the host, the third-ranked Texas Longhorns, at 10:00 am, in which they fell 5-0. However, they went on to dominate the No. 19 Washington Huskies in their second contest. A three-set thriller saw Tulane go up 3-1 against the Huskies, and they had a ranked win against Washington when they took them down for a final score of 4-1. Their final contest will be against Houston Christian at 4:00 pm.
Those results will all determine the seeding for Saturday’s finale, which will kick off with the third-place dual at either 9:00 or 10:00 am. Following that contest, the championship dual will take place between the two top seeded teams approximately 15 minutes after the third-place match, and the event will stream on the Longhorn Network.
In addition, the Green Wave are making their stand on the honor roll, as Conference USA commissioner Judy MacLeod announced the student athletes on CUSA Commissioner’s Honor Roll and the winners of the Commissioner’s Academic Medal. Both beach volleyball and bowling had multiple student athletes recognized.
There were nine Tulane beach volleyball student athletes who were honored with the Commissioner’s Academic Medal: Amirah Ali, Skylar Ensign, Tawny Ensign, Tara Gaspar, Lauren Mann, Emma Morris, Sam O’Connor, Molly Trodd, and Giorgia Walther. And all 16 members on the roster were recognized on the Commissioner’s Honor Roll.
The Wave will look to fight to get into the championship match, and follow up a strong showing in which they swept the Bayou Beach Duals at White Sands Volleyball Courts in New Orleans by winning 23 of 25 sets over the two-day event.