Pursuing dreams of someday reaching the Olympic podium, many of the top high school and college beach volleyball players will showcase their talents this weekend in Hermosa Beach.
Hosted by Olympic gold medalist Eric Fonoimoana, the inaugural Queen of the Beach will be held Friday through Sunday adjacent to the Hermosa Beach Pier, where top college players will be able to test themselves against the nation’s best competition and top high school players will have the opportunity to showcase their talents to college coaches from across the country.
The event is part of USA Volleyball’s Junior Beach Tour.
“Beach volleyball is the fastest growing sport for female athletes at the college and high school levels, with approximately 60 colleges fielding teams this year and the NCAA holding its first national championship in 2016,” Fonoimoana said. “I’ve always been a big supporter of helping the sport grow, and I’m very excited about bringing together the best competition in one place.
“The high school players we’ll see on the court will become the stars of the college game in the coming years, and the college players at our tournament very well could be representing the United States in the 2020 or 2024 Olympics.”
The Queen of the Beach Invitational will feature separate fields of 48 college players and 48 high school players. Players in each field will be seeded and divided into pools of four, with each player playing a game to 21 with each of the other three players in her pool. The top two players in each pool, determined by their win-loss record and point differential, will advance to the next round until a winner is crowned for the college field and the high school division.
The event will also feature coaching seminars and discussions with coaches from many of the country’s top college beach volleyball programs.
Local girls scheduled to compete include Mira Costa’s Avery Hazelrigg, Rio Frohoff, Alexia Inman, Maddie Micheletti, Kelli Barry and Piper Monk-Heidrich, Redondo’s Kyla Doig and Kenzie Holtz of Manhattan Beach’s Halstrom Academy.
Boys will compete in the King Kong tournament with the same format.
“So much attention has been diverted to the high school and college side for the women in beach volleyball that many people like to see other players play with random players,” said Mark Paaluhi, manager of the USAV Junior Beach Tour. “It’s a very unique format and takes a special athlete to be so successful with various players. It requires an athlete to quickly adapt to another player’s style, attitude, chemistry, strategy, skill level and ability to know when and how to take over a game when they need to.”
The boys in the King Kong Invitational are all ranked in the USAV National Ranking having proven themselves at various tournaments and levels of competition in their area and in some cases across the country.
Top local players include Dane Johnson (Mira Costa), Logan Glave (Redondo), Luke Grafton (Loyola) and Thomas Kretschmer (Mira Costa). Other local notables are Brady Wedbush (Loyola), Max Cajuste (Mira Costa) and John Conde (Mira Costa).
“Over the years we have lost the number of young men in beach volleyball that we had back in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” Paaluhi said. “The hope of the USAV is that events like this and the Junior Beach Tour will help turn that around and start building up the boys competition.”
Competition begins Thursday, June 23 with the Olympic Day Open featuring boys and girls 12U/14U/16U/18U divisions.
