KINGSVILLE, Texas – The 2019 season has finally arrived for the defending national champion Texas A&M-Kingsville beach volleyball team and it gets off to a busy start, as the Javelinas will play seven matches in the season's first three days, six of which will be against Division I programs.
The Javs tear the lid off their schedule on Thursday with two matches in Corpus Christi, Texas, first battling the A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders at 9 a.m. and following that with an 11 a.m. tussle with San Jose State. TAMUK comes back to Kingsville on Friday for the two-day Emerald Beach Hotel Classic. On day one, Coach Tanya Allen's bunch will entertain Missouri Baptist at 10 a.m., Houston Baptist at 12 p.m. and San Jose State at 5 p.m. The team's Saturday will include a 9 a.m. clash with the University of New Mexico before they close the weekend by facing the University of Louisiana-Monroe at 1 p.m.
"We had a really good offseason," said Allen, "and here in the preseason we've had about six weeks of really hard work. We have a lot of new kids, some transfers and freshman, just some players who are new to the game in general, but we have enough of a core returning group the I think [our newcomers] are growing and learning quickly. I'm excited to see them compete."
Among the returners from last year's championship club are two student-athletes who had 20 victories to their name a year ago. Freshman Tenley Housler (Bulverde, Texas) burst on to the scene and spent her entire rookie season in the third flight, helping the Javelinas collect 23 wins in that spot, including a triumph over a tandem from No. 15 TCU in the season's first match. Housler's outstanding freshman season earned her recognition in the form of an AVCA Top Flight Award.
Senior Haley Hutchinson (Georgetown, Texas) also spent the 2018 season in one place, settling in to the fourth spot, where she won 21 times. One of those triumphs came in a match against the nation's No. 15 team, the Arizona Wildcats, where Hutchinson teamed with Kyra Henderson to outlast their opponents in three sets. Hutchinson enters this season tied with Henderson for program's all-time lead with 32 career victories.
One of the most consistent tandems for the Javs was senior Madison Brabham (Kingwood, Texas) and sophomore Macy Berg (San Antonio, Texas), who played 30 times out of the second flight and totaled 19 wins. Brabham and Berg were one of two pairings that went undefeated at last year's AVCA Championships, winning all four of their matches to help their team capture the title.
TAMUK begins the season with its most familiar foe, squaring off with an Islander team that they'll be seeing for the seventh time in three years. In each of the last two seasons, the Javelinas have taken two of three from their rivals and in each instance, that's included the team's final match of the season.
Despite their lack of success against the Blue and Gold, the Islanders were a much-improved team a year ago and will undoubtedly be looking to continue building on their gains. They jumped from one win in 2017 to 12 a year ago and returned a number of players from last year's roster, while also adding seven freshmen.
The one school TAMUK will be locking horns with for the first time is San Jose State, who the Javs will see on consecutive days. The Spartans launched beach volleyball in 2014 and began the program by losing their first 32 matches, but have since found their footing, posting a 10-10 mark in 2018. Their season started on Friday with a 4-1 victory over the University of San Francisco. The Spartans are tasked with replaced the pair of Nandyala Gama and Lyndi Scholl, who led SJSU with 12 victories and were one of only two tandems to post a winning record with at least five matches played.
The season has also already begun for Missouri Baptist. They took on the tall task of competing against the University of Nebraska on Tuesday and were defeated, 5-0. The Spartans' 2018 season finished with a 9-5 record as MBU won its final five contests. That streak included a pair of wins at the American Volleyball Coaches Association Small College Beach Championships, which left the Spartans as the top NAIA program in the country.
The Houston Baptist Huskies closed out 2018 by winning four-in-a-row and six of their last seven to earn a winning record for the first time in program history. They'll be attempting to start this season in similar fashion, starting with a Javelina team they've defeat three times going back to 2017.
HBU's 2018 success was thanks in large part to their top two pairings, who went a combined 32-10. Unfortunately for the Huskies, they only brought back half of each tandem and they'll also be incorporating eight freshmen in 2019.
The New Mexico Lobos come to Kingsville looking for their first win after a difficult first three matchups that saw them fall to two top 20 programs and an Arizona State team receiving votes. UNM crafted winning records in both 2016 and 2017 before falling to 9-14 a year ago. The Lobos will be bringing a much different roster to Kingsville compared to the one the Javelinas defeated in 2018. The program signed up five new players, including two freshmen, prior to the start of the season and also shrunk the roster from 13 to 11 players.
This weekend will represent the first appearance at the Javelina Beach Courts for Louisiana-Monroe, but it will be the fourth meeting between TAMUK and ULM. The Warhawks took each of those meetings, including a 5-0 sweep last season and they'll come to Kingsville carrying a 3-1 record following a successful weekend at the Blazer Beach Duals. Their second flight pairing of Catherine Griffin and Maile Sellers proved to be their most adept in Birmingham, winning all four of their matches to cap event as ULM's only undefeated tandem.
Live stats will be available for each match at the Javelina Beach Courts via Javelinaathletics.com and a recap will be posted at the end of each day. Fans can keep up with Javelina Beach Volleyball by following @JavelinaBeach on Twitter and @javelinasports and @JavelinaBeach on Instagram, liking Javelina Sports on Facebook and visiting Javelinasports.com.
