The University of Central Arkansas beach volleyball team saw the 2023 season come to a close on Friday, April 21, with losses in the ASUN Tournament to first-seed Stetson University and fifth-seed Jacksonville University.
The Bears traveled down to the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida, where the eighth-seed Bears faced a tough draw against the Stetson Hatters, currently ranked number 18 in the nation.
Graduate student Kayla Cook and junior Payton Sproule battled against Stetson’s number four pair of Audrey Gauthier and Noelle Weintraub but were unable to secure a set victory, losing the match 5-0.
The rest of the Bears’ pairings were also shut out through the first game of the tournament and UCA had to look forward to facing Jacksonville later in the day.
Sophomore Ryenne Gepford said the competition was tough.
“Our conference is pretty stacked this year in beach volleyball. There are eight teams in our conference and three of them are ranked top 20 nationally.”
Stetson won the ASUN Conference tournament and managed to stay in the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) rankings for the duration of the 2023 season.
While Stetson barely managed to win over half of their games this season, the Hatters navigated a tough schedule with 10 of Stetson’s 14 losses on the year coming against ranked opponents, including a loss to the national runner-up, Florida State University.
UCA and Jacksonville University squared off for the second time ever, with the first matchup resulting in a Bear win in the 2022 ASUN Tournament.
This time, however, the Dolphins were able to get the upper hand, winning the game four matches to one.
Despite losing their first set, the pair of Cook and Sproule continued their great day, rallying to win the second set and then the third by a score of 15-8 to put UCA on the board.
In spite of their efforts, senior Julia Oravec and freshman Anna Linksey were not able to come up with a win.
The pair took Sydney Eckhardt and Olivia Szyszkiewicz to the brink in the first set, but the Jacksonville pair managed to squeeze by with a 22-20 win and a 21-14 win in the second set to seal the deal for the Dolphins.
Head coach Cassidi Stabile finished her first season with Bears with a season total of 8-20, despite beginning the season with a record of 1-7.
However, the Bears continued to see improvement as the season went along, especially from freshmen players Madelyn White, Grace Austin and Anna Linskey.
Although the season just ended, Gepford, who was named the 2023 ASUN Conference beach volleyball preseason player of the year, is already thinking forward to the 2024 season to continue her success on the sand.
“There are some pretty skilled freshmen coming in next year, so that will help elevate the team. This offseason, I’m going to focus on recovering, and then about a month before I come back to campus I’m going to focus on training again and getting some more touches before jumping right back into it,” Gepford said.
The beach volleyball team is only losing three seniors, so next season’s team will be an experienced group, and with coach Stabile entering her second season, expectations will be high for the Bears.