CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders won their fourth Southland Conference Tournament Championship in beach volleyball program history on Friday (2026, 2024, 2023, 2022), taking down HCU 3-0 in the best-of-5 matchup.
"Kind of had to rebuild. We lost a lot of seniors last year, but I think we have such a great group of girls and everyone really came together," said Islanders Millie Olsson."I mean we couldn't have done it without every single person on this team."
The 2's and 4's pairs won their sets in the first round. The No. 4 flight of Mia Stevens and Saskia Hernandez had complete control, winning in 2 sets to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead.
Then the No. 2 flight of seniors Maria Duda Fernandes de Melo and Olsson battled in a 3-set duel. After taking the first set, and narrowly dropping the second, the pair faced multiple match points. Ultimately winning 19-17 to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead and earning Pair of the Tournament honors.
"It's been a long time coming. A long time coming. I feel like we deserve this," said Duda Fernandes De Melo. "It's a lot of hard work, and playing together she always makes me laugh. I love making her laugh, so I think we definitely figured out like how to work together and persevered through a lot."
The Islanders needed one more set victory and it was the 5's pair that secured the Championship title. Lizzie Denyer and Ashlyn Rough closed out a 21-4 first set and 21-11 second set to win and seal the title.
The NCAA Tournament Selection Show is scheduled for Sunday at noon. Doors will open for fans to join in on the fun at 11:30 a.m. on TAMU-CC's campus. Location to be announced.
"We don't want to just get there, we want to go out and compete," said Islanders beach volleyball head coach Gayle Stammer. "What I think we have to do is go out and play everybody, play our game and play with the confidence. We want to go out and try and win, one match at a time."
