USC celebrates inaugural NCAA Beach crown! - Articles

For that matter, after the Nos. 3 and 5 teams won their matches, it was a race between the pairs playing 1, 2 and 4 to see who would clinch the inaugural NCAA Beach Championship for the Women of Troy. Who else but Sara Hughes and Kelly Claes, who won their 73rd consecutive match to go 48-0 this season? They beat Florida State’s Julie Brown and Jace Pardon 21-5, 21-10 to set up a celebration that started on center court, continued through the awards ceremony and finished with a dip in the Gulf of Mexico. Hughes and Claes talked about the streak and winning it all as USC finished 34-2. Sara Hughes/Kelly Claes video The two schools played each other twice previously, the first in March when FSU won on USC’s home court in five, and, of course, on Saturday, when the Women of Troy put Florida State into a must-win Sunday-morning match against UCLA. That loss at home for USC was one of only two this season, the other coming a week earlier at Pepperdine, which also made this eight-team field. Veteran USC coach Anna Collier said simply, “This is what it’s all about.” Anna Collier interview video Florida State counterpart Brooke Niles would have liked to have won, but knows the Seminoles had a great season. They finished 32-3, losing twice this weekend to USC and once in a late-March Florida tournament to Hawaii, which was also part of this NCAA field. Brooke Niles video Florida State almost definitely had to win at 2,...

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