For the fourth time in program history, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi beach volleyball program hosted their Conni and Jay Wise Islander Classic tournament at Waters Edge Park. 

Despite the Islanders’ 4-1 loss on Friday against No. 17 Arizona, they were able to bounce back the next day by taking two wins over Arizona Christian 5-0 and HBU 4-1 on Senior Day. 

TAMU-CC’s duos were battling back and forth against Arizona while junior Giuliana Poletti Corrales and sophomore Brooke Pertuit won both their sets to stay in the No. 1 position on court one. At the end of the tournament, they managed to stay undefeated and won nine matches in total.  

“One of the highlights would be on our one’s team beating Arizona one,”
said head beach volleyball coach Gayle Stammer. “Everyone played with a lot of grit and desire, they played to win. We’re most excited about is [that] we just found out that the NCAA Nationals, you know the beach volleyball championship are opening up to 16 teams.”

With the NCAA allowing 16 teams to join, this allows the Southland Conference to be considered an automatic qualifier for the team who wins the SLC tournament. 

Stammer acknowledged that for their upcoming tournament, she wants to work on the team’s cross plays, along with working on their serving skills to use as a weapon to gain points. Stammer learned that the Islanders need to strategically stay with what’s working for them in focusing on the important fundamentals. 

The team as a whole won all their sets against Arizona Christian, while Houston Baptist University managed to win the sets on the third court. 

Junior Shea Slusser was pumped to play at home along with her team as they prepared themselves to face these ranked teams on the sand courts. With Slusser being new on the team, she spoke on how Islander Athletics and everyone involved did a good job on setting up the entire tournament.

“I think we have a mentality that anyone can beat anyone any given day, and just sometimes you have to outwork the other team,” Slusser said. “The program has gotten so good up until this point, and I think we can only go up from here. We’re going to go into our conference tournament all in and just a lot of energy.”

The Islanders will be traveling to Tallahassee, Florida this weekend to compete at the Unconquered Invitational happening at Florida State University. Follow the Islanders on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates.