The championship hopes will end short of the medal podium for the U.S. pair of Harvard outside attacker Branden Clemens and UCLA outside attacker Jackson Bantle.
Clemens and Bantle lost to the Norway’s Christian Sandlie Sorum and Hendrik Nikolai Mol H 21-13, 21-15 in the second round of the FIVB Beach U-21 World Championships on Saturday in Larnaka, Cyprus, to be eliminated from the international tournament.
Continue reading
Four current college men’s volleyball players will represented the United States at the biggest international junior beach volleyball tournament of the year.
USA Volleyball announced Tuesday that the two beach volleyball pairs of UCLA outside attacker Jackson Bantle and Harvard outside attacker attacker Branden Clemens along with UCLA setter Hagen Smith and USC outside attacker Christopher Orenic will compete at the upcoming FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships.
Continue reading
When John Speraw was first introduced as the U.S. Men’s National Team head coach one year ago he said in his opening news conference the team would get younger and he would use the FIVB World League to experiment with his roster.
The youth movement and all the roster experiments have now paid off to the United States being one win away from a FIVB World League gold medal.
An UCLA incoming freshman recruit not only ended his club career with a national championship but with the top individual award at a national tournament.
Outside attacker and setter J.T. Hatch was named the tournament’s most valuable player as his club team Spiral defeat Ultimate 21-25, 25-22, 17-15 on Tuesday in Houston to win the USA Volleyball Boys’ U-18 Open national title.
Continue reading
The reigning NCAA champions have reloaded its roster for the future seasons.
Loyola led all schools with seven incoming high school recruits named to the recently released Volleyball Magazine Fab 50 recruits.
Continue reading
The hype around UCLA’s latest recruiting class just increased a little bit more.
UCLA incoming recruit outside attacker Jake Arnitz had a match-high 38 kills to help his high school team Esperanza defeat Laguna Beach 25-23, 19-25, 27-25, 18-25, 15-9 in the California state tournament section finals on Saturday.
The first postseason home match for UC Santa Barbara in seven years lived up to the hype.
The No. 4 seed UC Santa Barbara playing in front of a sold-out 2,000 person crowd rallied to beat the No. 5 seed UCLA 23-25, 25-20, 18-25, 25-20, 15-12 on Saturday in the MPSF Tournament quarterfinals.
Check out Off the Block special contributor Jonathan Bates’ postmatch interview with UCLA coach John Speraw following the team’s loss to UC Santa Barbara in the MPSF Tournament quarterfinals on Saturday. Continue reading
Check out all-conference outside attacker Evan Licht’s postmatch news after UC Santa Barbara rallied from a one-game deficit to defeat UCLA in the MPSF Tournament quarterfinals on Saturday. Continue reading
Check out UC Santa Barbara coach Rick McLaughlin’s postmatch news conference following his team’s five-game postseason victory against UCLA on Saturday. Video courtesy of Off the Block special contributor Jonathan Bates. Continue reading
